Bandwidth Part Management in a Secondary Cell of a Wireless Device

ABSTRACT

A wireless device receives configuration parameters of a cell. The cell comprises bandwidth parts (BWPs). The BWPs comprise a first active BWP. The configuration parameters comprise a timer value for a BWP inactivity timer. A first downlink control information (DCI) indicating an activation of the cell is received. In response to the first DCI indicating the activation of the cell: the first active BWP is activated; and the BWP inactivity timer is started based on the timer value. During the BWP inactivity timer running, a second DCI is received via the first active BWP.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 16/173,572, filed Oct. 29, 2018, which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/577,805, filed Oct. 27, 2017, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/577,812, filed Oct. 27, 2017, which are hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

Examples of several of the various embodiments of the present invention are described herein with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a diagram depicting example sets of OFDM subcarriers as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 2 is a diagram depicting an example transmission time and reception time for two carriers in a carrier group as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3 is a diagram depicting OFDM radio resources as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a base station and a wireless device as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5A, FIG. 5B, FIG. 5C and FIG. 5D are example diagrams for uplink and downlink signal transmission as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 is an example diagram for a protocol structure with multi-connectivity as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 7 is an example diagram for a protocol structure with CA and DC as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 shows example TAG configurations as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 is an example message flow in a random access process in a secondary TAG as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10A and FIG. 10B are example diagrams for interfaces between a 5G core network (e.g. NGC) and base stations (e.g. gNB and eLTE eNB) as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11A, FIG. 11B, FIG. 11C, FIG. 11D, FIG. 11E, and FIG. 11F are example diagrams for architectures of tight interworking between 5G RAN (e.g. gNB) and LTE RAN (e.g. (e)LTE eNB) as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12A, FIG. 12B, and FIG. 12C are example diagrams for radio protocol structures of tight interworking bearers as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 13A and FIG. 13B are example diagrams for gNB deployment scenarios as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 14 is an example diagram for functional split option examples of the centralized gNB deployment scenario as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 15 is an example diagram for synchronization signal block transmissions as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 16 is an example diagram of random access procedure when configured with multiple beam as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 17 is an example diagram for channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) transmissions as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 18 is an example diagram for channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS) transmissions as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 19 is an example diagram for downlink beam management procedures as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 20A is an example diagram for downlink beam failure scenario in a transmission receiving point (TRP) as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 20B is an example diagram for downlink beam failure scenario in multiple TRPs as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 21A is an example diagram for a secondary activation/deactivation medium access control control element (MAC CE) as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 21B is an example diagram for a secondary activation/deactivation medium access control control element (MAC CE) as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 22A is an example diagram for timing for CSI report when activation of a secondary cell as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 22B is an example diagram for timing for CSI report when activation of a secondary cell as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 23 is an example diagram for downlink control information (DCI) formats as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 24 is an example diagram for bandwidth part (BWP) configurations as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 25 is an example diagram for BWP operation in a secondary cell as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 26 is an example diagram for BWP operation in a cell as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 27 is an example diagram for BWP operation in a cell as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 28 is an example diagram for BWP operation as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 29 is an example diagram for BWP operation as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 30 is a flow diagram of an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 31 is a flow diagram of an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 32 is a flow diagram of an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

FIG. 33 is a flow diagram of an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Example embodiments of the present invention enable operation of carrier aggregation. Embodiments of the technology disclosed herein may be employed in the technical field of multicarrier communication systems. More particularly, the embodiments of the technology disclosed herein may relate to signal transmission and reception in a multicarrier communication system.

The following Acronyms are used throughout the present disclosure:

ASIC application-specific integrated circuit

BPSK binary phase shift keying

CA carrier aggregation

CSI channel state information

CDMA code division multiple access

CSS common search space

CPLD complex programmable logic devices

CC component carrier

CP cyclic prefix

DL downlink

DCI downlink control information

DC dual connectivity

eMBB enhanced mobile broadband

EPC evolved packet core

E-UTRAN evolved-universal terrestrial radio access network

FPGA field programmable gate arrays

FDD frequency division multiplexing

HDL hardware description languages

HARQ hybrid automatic repeat request

IE information element

LTE long term evolution

MCG master cell group

MeNB master evolved node B

MIB master information block

MAC media access control

MAC media access control

MME mobility management entity

mMTC massive machine type communications

NAS non-access stratum

NR new radio

OFDM orthogonal frequency division multiplexing

PDCP packet data convergence protocol

PDU packet data unit

PHY physical

PDCCH physical downlink control channel

PHICH physical HARQ indicator channel

PUCCH physical uplink control channel

PUSCH physical uplink shared channel

PCell primary cell

PCC primary component carrier

PSCell primary secondary cell

pTAG primary timing advance group

QAM quadrature amplitude modulation

QPSK quadrature phase shift keying

RBG resource block groups

RLC radio link control

RRC radio resource control

RA random access

RB resource blocks

SCC secondary component carrier

SCell secondary cell

SCG secondary cell group

SeNB secondary evolved node B

sTAGs secondary timing advance group

SDU service data unit

S-GW serving gateway

SRB signaling radio bearer

SC-OFDM single carrier-OFDM

SFN system frame number

SIB system information block

TAI tracking area identifier

TAT time alignment timer

TDD time division duplexing

TDMA time division multiple access

TA timing advance

TAG timing advance group

TTI transmission time interval

TB transport block

UL uplink

UE user equipment

URLLC ultra-reliable low-latency communications

VHDL VHSIC hardware description language

CU central unit

DU distributed unit

Fs-C Fs-control plane

Fs-U Fs-user plane

gNB next generation node B

NGC next generation core

NG CP next generation control plane core

NG-C NG-control plane

NG-U NG-user plane

NR new radio

NR MAC new radio MAC

NR PHY new radio physical

NR PDCP new radio PDCP

NR RLC new radio RLC

NR RRC new radio RRC

NSSAI network slice selection assistance information

PLMN public land mobile network

UPGW user plane gateway

Xn-C Xn-control plane

Xn-U Xn-user plane

Xx-C Xx-control plane

Xx-U Xx-user plane

Example embodiments of the invention may be implemented using various physical layer modulation and transmission mechanisms. Example transmission mechanisms may include, but are not limited to: CDMA, OFDM, TDMA, Wavelet technologies, and/or the like. Hybrid transmission mechanisms such as TDMA/CDMA, and OFDM/CDMA may also be employed. Various modulation schemes may be applied for signal transmission in the physical layer. Examples of modulation schemes include, but are not limited to: phase, amplitude, code, a combination of these, and/or the like. An example radio transmission method may implement QAM using BPSK, QPSK, 16-QAM, 64-QAM, 256-QAM, 1024-QAM and/or the like. Physical radio transmission may be enhanced by dynamically or semi-dynamically changing the modulation and coding scheme depending on transmission requirements and radio conditions.

FIG. 1 is a diagram depicting example sets of OFDM subcarriers as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. As illustrated in this example, arrow(s) in the diagram may depict a subcarrier in a multicarrier OFDM system. The OFDM system may use technology such as OFDM technology, DFTS-OFDM, SC-OFDM technology, or the like. For example, arrow 101 shows a subcarrier transmitting information symbols. FIG. 1 is for illustration purposes, and a typical multicarrier OFDM system may include more subcarriers in a carrier. For example, the number of subcarriers in a carrier may be in the range of 10 to 10,000 subcarriers. FIG. 1 shows two guard bands 106 and 107 in a transmission band. As illustrated in FIG. 1, guard band 106 is between subcarriers 103 and subcarriers 104. The example set of subcarriers A 102 includes subcarriers 103 and subcarriers 104. FIG. 1 also illustrates an example set of subcarriers B 105. As illustrated, there is no guard band between any two subcarriers in the example set of subcarriers B 105. Carriers in a multicarrier OFDM communication system may be contiguous carriers, non-contiguous carriers, or a combination of both contiguous and non-contiguous carriers.

FIG. 2 is a diagram depicting an example transmission time and reception time for two carriers as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. A multicarrier OFDM communication system may include one or more carriers, for example, ranging from 1 to 10 carriers. Carrier A 204 and carrier B 205 may have the same or different timing structures. Although FIG. 2 shows two synchronized carriers, carrier A 204 and carrier B 205 may or may not be synchronized with each other. Different radio frame structures may be supported for FDD and TDD duplex mechanisms. FIG. 2 shows an example FDD frame timing. Downlink and uplink transmissions may be organized into radio frames 201. In this example, radio frame duration is 10 msec. Other frame durations, for example, in the range of 1 to 100 msec may also be supported. In this example, each 10 ms radio frame 201 may be divided into ten equally sized subframes 202. Other subframe durations such as including 0.5 msec, 1 msec, 2 msec, and 5 msec may also be supported. Subframe(s) may comprise of two or more slots (e.g. slots 206 and 207). For the example of FDD, 10 subframes may be available for downlink transmission and 10 subframes may be available for uplink transmissions in each 10 ms interval. Uplink and downlink transmissions may be separated in the frequency domain. A slot may be 7 or 14 OFDM symbols for the same subcarrier spacing of up to 60 kHz with normal CP. A slot may be 14 OFDM symbols for the same subcarrier spacing higher than 60 kHz with normal CP. A slot may contain all downlink, all uplink, or a downlink part and an uplink part and/or alike. Slot aggregation may be supported, e.g., data transmission may be scheduled to span one or multiple slots. In an example, a mini-slot may start at an OFDM symbol in a subframe. A mini-slot may have a duration of one or more OFDM symbols. Slot(s) may include a plurality of OFDM symbols 203. The number of OFDM symbols 203 in a slot 206 may depend on the cyclic prefix length and subcarrier spacing.

FIG. 3 is a diagram depicting OFDM radio resources as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. The resource grid structure in time 304 and frequency 305 is illustrated in FIG. 3. The quantity of downlink subcarriers or RBs may depend, at least in part, on the downlink transmission bandwidth 306 configured in the cell. The smallest radio resource unit may be called a resource element (e.g. 301). Resource elements may be grouped into resource blocks (e.g. 302). Resource blocks may be grouped into larger radio resources called Resource Block Groups (RBG) (e.g. 303). The transmitted signal in slot 206 may be described by one or several resource grids of a plurality of subcarriers and a plurality of OFDM symbols. Resource blocks may be used to describe the mapping of certain physical channels to resource elements. Other pre-defined groupings of physical resource elements may be implemented in the system depending on the radio technology. For example, 24 subcarriers may be grouped as a radio block for a duration of 5 msec. In an illustrative example, a resource block may correspond to one slot in the time domain and 180 kHz in the frequency domain (for 15 KHz subcarrier bandwidth and 12 subcarriers).

In an example embodiment, multiple numerologies may be supported. In an example, a numerology may be derived by scaling a basic subcarrier spacing by an integer N. In an example, scalable numerology may allow at least from 15 kHz to 480 kHz subcarrier spacing. The numerology with 15 kHz and scaled numerology with different subcarrier spacing with the same CP overhead may align at a symbol boundary every 1 ms in a NR carrier.

FIG. 5A, FIG. 5B, FIG. 5C and FIG. 5D are example diagrams for uplink and downlink signal transmission as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. FIG. 5A shows an example uplink physical channel. The baseband signal representing the physical uplink shared channel may perform the following processes. These functions are illustrated as examples and it is anticipated that other mechanisms may be implemented in various embodiments. The functions may comprise scrambling, modulation of scrambled bits to generate complex-valued symbols, mapping of the complex-valued modulation symbols onto one or several transmission layers, transform precoding to generate complex-valued symbols, precoding of the complex-valued symbols, mapping of precoded complex-valued symbols to resource elements, generation of complex-valued time-domain DFTS-OFDM/SC-FDMA signal for an antenna port, and/or the like.

Example modulation and up-conversion to the carrier frequency of the complex-valued DFTS-OFDM/SC-FDMA baseband signal for an antenna port and/or the complex-valued PRACH baseband signal is shown in FIG. 5B. Filtering may be employed prior to transmission.

An example structure for Downlink Transmissions is shown in FIG. 5C. The baseband signal representing a downlink physical channel may perform the following processes. These functions are illustrated as examples and it is anticipated that other mechanisms may be implemented in various embodiments. The functions include scrambling of coded bits in codewords to be transmitted on a physical channel; modulation of scrambled bits to generate complex-valued modulation symbols; mapping of the complex-valued modulation symbols onto one or several transmission layers; precoding of the complex-valued modulation symbols on a layer for transmission on the antenna ports; mapping of complex-valued modulation symbols for an antenna port to resource elements; generation of complex-valued time-domain OFDM signal for an antenna port, and/or the like.

Example modulation and up-conversion to the carrier frequency of the complex-valued OFDM baseband signal for an antenna port is shown in FIG. 5D. Filtering may be employed prior to transmission.

FIG. 4 is an example block diagram of a base station 401 and a wireless device 406, as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. A communication network 400 may include at least one base station 401 and at least one wireless device 406. The base station 401 may include at least one communication interface 402, at least one processor 403, and at least one set of program code instructions 405 stored in non-transitory memory 404 and executable by the at least one processor 403. The wireless device 406 may include at least one communication interface 407, at least one processor 408, and at least one set of program code instructions 410 stored in non-transitory memory 409 and executable by the at least one processor 408. Communication interface 402 in base station 401 may be configured to engage in communication with communication interface 407 in wireless device 406 via a communication path that includes at least one wireless link 411. Wireless link 411 may be a bi-directional link. Communication interface 407 in wireless device 406 may also be configured to engage in a communication with communication interface 402 in base station 401. Base station 401 and wireless device 406 may be configured to send and receive data over wireless link 411 using multiple frequency carriers. According to some of the various aspects of embodiments, transceiver(s) may be employed. A transceiver is a device that includes both a transmitter and receiver. Transceivers may be employed in devices such as wireless devices, base stations, relay nodes, and/or the like. Example embodiments for radio technology implemented in communication interface 402, 407 and wireless link 411 are illustrated are FIG. 1, FIG. 2, FIG. 3, FIG. 5, and associated text.

An interface may be a hardware interface, a firmware interface, a software interface, and/or a combination thereof. The hardware interface may include connectors, wires, electronic devices such as drivers, amplifiers, and/or the like. A software interface may include code stored in a memory device to implement protocol(s), protocol layers, communication drivers, device drivers, combinations thereof, and/or the like. A firmware interface may include a combination of embedded hardware and code stored in and/or in communication with a memory device to implement connections, electronic device operations, protocol(s), protocol layers, communication drivers, device drivers, hardware operations, combinations thereof, and/or the like.

The term configured may relate to the capacity of a device whether the device is in an operational or non-operational state. Configured may also refer to specific settings in a device that effect the operational characteristics of the device whether the device is in an operational or non-operational state. In other words, the hardware, software, firmware, registers, memory values, and/or the like may be “configured” within a device, whether the device is in an operational or nonoperational state, to provide the device with specific characteristics. Terms such as “a control message to cause in a device” may mean that a control message has parameters that may be used to configure specific characteristics in the device, whether the device is in an operational or non-operational state.

According to some of the various aspects of embodiments, a 5G network may include a multitude of base stations, providing a user plane NR PDCP/NR RLC/NR MAC/NR PHY and control plane (NR RRC) protocol terminations towards the wireless device. The base station(s) may be interconnected with other base station(s) (e.g. employing an Xn interface). The base stations may also be connected employing, for example, an NG interface to an NGC. FIG. 10A and FIG. 10B are example diagrams for interfaces between a 5G core network (e.g. NGC) and base stations (e.g. gNB and eLTE eNB) as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. For example, the base stations may be interconnected to the NGC control plane (e.g. NG CP) employing the NG-C interface and to the NGC user plane (e.g. UPGW) employing the NG-U interface. The NG interface may support a many-to-many relation between 5G core networks and base stations.

A base station may include many sectors for example: 1, 2, 3, 4, or 6 sectors. A base station may include many cells, for example, ranging from 1 to 50 cells or more. A cell may be categorized, for example, as a primary cell or secondary cell. At RRC connection establishment/re-establishment/handover, one serving cell may provide the NAS (non-access stratum) mobility information (e.g. TAI), and at RRC connection re-establishment/handover, one serving cell may provide the security input. This cell may be referred to as the Primary Cell (PCell). In the downlink, the carrier corresponding to the PCell may be the Downlink Primary Component Carrier (DL PCC), while in the uplink, it may be the Uplink Primary Component Carrier (UL PCC). Depending on wireless device capabilities, Secondary Cells (SCells) may be configured to form together with the PCell a set of serving cells. In the downlink, the carrier corresponding to an SCell may be a Downlink Secondary Component Carrier (DL SCC), while in the uplink, it may be an Uplink Secondary Component Carrier (UL SCC). An SCell may or may not have an uplink carrier.

A cell, comprising a downlink carrier and optionally an uplink carrier, may be assigned a physical cell ID and a cell index. A carrier (downlink or uplink) may belong to only one cell. The cell ID or Cell index may also identify the downlink carrier or uplink carrier of the cell (depending on the context it is used). In the specification, cell ID may be equally referred to a carrier ID, and cell index may be referred to carrier index. In implementation, the physical cell ID or cell index may be assigned to a cell. A cell ID may be determined using a synchronization signal transmitted on a downlink carrier. A cell index may be determined using RRC messages. For example, when the specification refers to a first physical cell ID for a first downlink carrier, the specification may mean the first physical cell ID is for a cell comprising the first downlink carrier. The same concept may apply to, for example, carrier activation. When the specification indicates that a first carrier is activated, the specification may equally mean that the cell comprising the first carrier is activated.

Embodiments may be configured to operate as needed. The disclosed mechanism may be performed when certain criteria are met, for example, in a wireless device, a base station, a radio environment, a network, a combination of the above, and/or the like. Example criteria may be based, at least in part, on for example, traffic load, initial system set up, packet sizes, traffic characteristics, a combination of the above, and/or the like. When the one or more criteria are met, various example embodiments may be applied. Therefore, it may be possible to implement example embodiments that selectively implement disclosed protocols.

A base station may communicate with a mix of wireless devices. Wireless devices may support multiple technologies, and/or multiple releases of the same technology. Wireless devices may have some specific capability(ies) depending on its wireless device category and/or capability(ies). A base station may comprise multiple sectors. When this disclosure refers to a base station communicating with a plurality of wireless devices, this disclosure may refer to a subset of the total wireless devices in a coverage area. This disclosure may refer to, for example, a plurality of wireless devices of a given LTE or 5G release with a given capability and in a given sector of the base station. The plurality of wireless devices in this disclosure may refer to a selected plurality of wireless devices, and/or a subset of total wireless devices in a coverage area which perform according to disclosed methods, and/or the like. There may be a plurality of wireless devices in a coverage area that may not comply with the disclosed methods, for example, because those wireless devices perform based on older releases of LTE or 5G technology.

FIG. 6 and FIG. 7 are example diagrams for protocol structure with CA and multi-connectivity as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. NR may support multi-connectivity operation whereby a multiple RX/TX UE in RRC_CONNECTED may be configured to utilize radio resources provided by multiple schedulers located in multiple gNBs connected via a non-ideal or ideal backhaul over the Xn interface. gNBs involved in multi-connectivity for a certain UE may assume two different roles: a gNB may either act as a master gNB or as a secondary gNB. In multi-connectivity, a UE may be connected to one master gNB and one or more secondary gNBs. FIG. 7 illustrates one example structure for the UE side MAC entities when a Master Cell Group (MCG) and a Secondary Cell Group (SCG) are configured, and it may not restrict implementation. Media Broadcast Multicast Service (MBMS) reception is not shown in this figure for simplicity.

In multi-connectivity, the radio protocol architecture that a particular bearer uses may depend on how the bearer is setup. Three examples of bearers, including, an MCG bearer, an SCG bearer and a split bearer as shown in FIG. 6. NR RRC may be located in master gNB and SRBs may be configured as a MCG bearer type and may use the radio resources of the master gNB. Multi-connectivity may also be described as having at least one bearer configured to use radio resources provided by the secondary gNB. Multi-connectivity may or may not be configured/implemented in example embodiments of the disclosure.

In the case of multi-connectivity, the UE may be configured with multiple NR MAC entities: one NR MAC entity for master gNB, and other NR MAC entities for secondary gNBs. In multi-connectivity, the configured set of serving cells for a UE may comprise of two subsets: the Master Cell Group (MCG) containing the serving cells of the master gNB, and the Secondary Cell Groups (SCGs) containing the serving cells of the secondary gNBs. For a SCG, one or more of the following may be applied: at least one cell in the SCG has a configured UL CC and one of them, named PSCell (or PCell of SCG, or sometimes called PCell), is configured with PUCCH resources; when the SCG is configured, there may be at least one SCG bearer or one Split bearer; upon detection of a physical layer problem or a random access problem on a PSCell, or the maximum number of NR RLC retransmissions has been reached associated with the SCG, or upon detection of an access problem on a PSCell during a SCG addition or a SCG change: a RRC connection re-establishment procedure may not be triggered, UL transmissions towards cells of the SCG are stopped, a master gNB may be informed by the UE of a SCG failure type, for split bearer, the DL data transfer over the master gNB is maintained; the NR RLC AM bearer may be configured for the split bearer; like PCell, PSCell may not be de-activated; PSCell may be changed with a SCG change (e.g. with security key change and a RACH procedure); and/or a direct bearer type change between a Split bearer and a SCG bearer or simultaneous configuration of a SCG and a Split bearer may or may not supported.

With respect to the interaction between a master gNB and secondary gNBs for multi-connectivity, one or more of the following principles may be applied: the master gNB may maintain the RRM measurement configuration of the UE and may, (e.g., based on received measurement reports or traffic conditions or bearer types), decide to ask a secondary gNB to provide additional resources (serving cells) for a UE; upon receiving a request from the master gNB, a secondary gNB may create a container that may result in the configuration of additional serving cells for the UE (or decide that it has no resource available to do so); for UE capability coordination, the master gNB may provide (part of) the AS configuration and the UE capabilities to the secondary gNB; the master gNB and the secondary gNB may exchange information about a UE configuration by employing of NR RRC containers (inter-node messages) carried in Xn messages; the secondary gNB may initiate a reconfiguration of its existing serving cells (e.g., PUCCH towards the secondary gNB); the secondary gNB may decide which cell is the PSCell within the SCG; the master gNB may or may not change the content of the NR RRC configuration provided by the secondary gNB; in the case of a SCG addition and a SCG SCell addition, the master gNB may provide the latest measurement results for the SCG cell(s); both a master gNB and secondary gNBs may know the SFN and subframe offset of each other by OAM, (e.g., for the purpose of DRX alignment and identification of a measurement gap). In an example, when adding a new SCG SCell, dedicated NR RRC signaling may be used for sending required system information of the cell as for CA, except for the SFN acquired from a MIB of the PSCell of a SCG.

In an example, serving cells may be grouped in a TA group (TAG). Serving cells in one TAG may use the same timing reference. For a given TAG, user equipment (UE) may use at least one downlink carrier as a timing reference. For a given TAG, a UE may synchronize uplink subframe and frame transmission timing of uplink carriers belonging to the same TAG. In an example, serving cells having an uplink to which the same TA applies may correspond to serving cells hosted by the same receiver. A UE supporting multiple TAs may support two or more TA groups. One TA group may contain the PCell and may be called a primary TAG (pTAG). In a multiple TAG configuration, at least one TA group may not contain the PCell and may be called a secondary TAG (sTAG). In an example, carriers within the same TA group may use the same TA value and/or the same timing reference. When DC is configured, cells belonging to a cell group (MCG or SCG) may be grouped into multiple TAGs including a pTAG and one or more sTAGs.

FIG. 8 shows example TAG configurations as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. In Example 1, pTAG comprises PCell, and an sTAG comprises SCell1. In Example 2, a pTAG comprises a PCell and SCell1, and an sTAG comprises SCell12 and SCell13. In Example 3, pTAG comprises PCell and SCell1, and an sTAG1 includes SCell2 and SCell3, and sTAG2 comprises SCell14. Up to four TAGs may be supported in a cell group (MCG or SCG) and other example TAG configurations may also be provided. In various examples in this disclosure, example mechanisms are described for a pTAG and an sTAG. Some of the example mechanisms may be applied to configurations with multiple sTAGs.

In an example, an eNB may initiate an RA procedure via a PDCCH order for an activated SCell. This PDCCH order may be sent on a scheduling cell of this SCell. When cross carrier scheduling is configured for a cell, the scheduling cell may be different than the cell that is employed for preamble transmission, and the PDCCH order may include an SCell index. At least a non-contention based RA (or contention-free RA) procedure may be supported for SCell(s) assigned to sTAG(s).

FIG. 9 is an example message flow in a random access process in a secondary TAG as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. An eNB transmits an activation command 900 to activate an SCell. A preamble 902 (Msg1) may be sent by a UE in response to a PDCCH order 901 on an SCell belonging to an sTAG. In an example embodiment, preamble transmission for SCells may be controlled by the network using PDCCH format 1A. Msg2 message 903 (RAR: random access response) in response to the preamble transmission on the SCell may be addressed to RA-RNTI in a PCell common search space (CSS). Uplink packets 904 may be transmitted on the SCell in which the preamble was transmitted.

According to some of the various aspects of embodiments, initial timing alignment may be achieved through a random access procedure. This may involve a UE transmitting a random access preamble and an eNB responding with an initial TA command NTA (amount of timing advance) within a random access response window. The start of the random access preamble may be aligned with the start of a corresponding uplink subframe at the UE assuming NTA=0. The eNB may estimate the uplink timing from the random access preamble transmitted by the UE. The TA command may be derived by the eNB based on the estimation of the difference between the desired UL timing and the actual UL timing. The UE may determine the initial uplink transmission timing relative to the corresponding downlink of the sTAG on which the preamble is transmitted.

The mapping of a serving cell to a TAG may be configured by a serving eNB with RRC signaling. The mechanism for TAG configuration and reconfiguration may be based on RRC signaling. According to some of the various aspects of embodiments, when an eNB performs an SCell addition configuration, the related TAG configuration may be configured for the SCell. In an example embodiment, an eNB may modify the TAG configuration of an SCell by removing (releasing) the SCell and adding (configuring) a new SCell (with the same physical cell ID and frequency) with an updated TAG ID. The new SCell with the updated TAG ID may initially be inactive subsequent to being assigned the updated TAG ID. The eNB may activate the updated new SCell and start scheduling packets on the activated SCell. In an example implementation, it may not be possible to change the TAG associated with an SCell, but rather, the SCell may need to be removed and a new SCell may need to be added with another TAG. For example, if there is a need to move an SCell from an sTAG to a pTAG, at least one RRC message, for example, at least one RRC reconfiguration message, may be send to the UE to reconfigure TAG configurations by releasing the SCell and then configuring the SCell as a part of the pTAG (when an SCell is added/configured without a TAG index, the SCell may be explicitly assigned to the pTAG). The PCell may not change its TA group and may be a member of the pTAG.

The purpose of an RRC connection reconfiguration procedure may be to modify an RRC connection, (e.g. to establish, modify and/or release RBs, to perform handover, to setup, modify, and/or release measurements, to add, modify, and/or release SCells). If the received RRC Connection Reconfiguration message includes the sCellToReleaseList, the UE may perform an SCell release. If the received RRC Connection Reconfiguration message includes the sCellToAddModList, the UE may perform SCell additions or modification.

In LTE Release-10 and Release-11 CA, a PUCCH is only transmitted on the PCell (PSCell) to an eNB. In LTE-Release 12 and earlier, a UE may transmit PUCCH information on one cell (PCell or PSCell) to a given eNB.

As the number of CA capable UEs and also the number of aggregated carriers increase, the number of PUCCHs and also the PUCCH payload size may increase. Accommodating the PUCCH transmissions on the PCell may lead to a high PUCCH load on the PCell. A PUCCH on an SCell may be introduced to offload the PUCCH resource from the PCell. More than one PUCCH may be configured for example, a PUCCH on a PCell and another PUCCH on an SCell. In the example embodiments, one, two or more cells may be configured with PUCCH resources for transmitting CSI/ACK/NACK to a base station. Cells may be grouped into multiple PUCCH groups, and one or more cell within a group may be configured with a PUCCH. In an example configuration, one SCell may belong to one PUCCH group. SCells with a configured PUCCH transmitted to a base station may be called a PUCCH SCell, and a cell group with a common PUCCH resource transmitted to the same base station may be called a PUCCH group.

In an example embodiment, a MAC entity may have a configurable timer timeAlignmentTimer per TAG. The timeAlignmentTimer may be used to control how long the MAC entity considers the Serving Cells belonging to the associated TAG to be uplink time aligned. The MAC entity may, when a Timing Advance Command MAC control element is received, apply the Timing Advance Command for the indicated TAG; start or restart the timeAlignmentTimer associated with the indicated TAG. The MAC entity may, when a Timing Advance Command is received in a Random Access Response message for a serving cell belonging to a TAG and/or if the Random Access Preamble was not selected by the MAC entity, apply the Timing Advance Command for this TAG and start or restart the timeAlignmentTimer associated with this TAG. Otherwise, if the timeAlignmentTimer associated with this TAG is not running, the Timing Advance Command for this TAG may be applied and the timeAlignmentTimer associated with this TAG started. When the contention resolution is considered not successful, a timeAlignmentTimer associated with this TAG may be stopped. Otherwise, the MAC entity may ignore the received Timing Advance Command.

In example embodiments, a timer is running once it is started, until it is stopped or until it expires; otherwise it may not be running. A timer may be started if it is not running or restarted if it is running. For example, a timer may be started or restarted from its initial value.

Example embodiments of the disclosure may enable operation of multi-carrier communications. Other example embodiments may comprise a non-transitory tangible computer readable media comprising instructions executable by one or more processors to cause operation of multi-carrier communications. Yet other example embodiments may comprise an article of manufacture that comprises a non-transitory tangible computer readable machine-accessible medium having instructions encoded thereon for enabling programmable hardware to cause a device (e.g. wireless communicator, UE, base station, etc.) to enable operation of multi-carrier communications. The device may include processors, memory, interfaces, and/or the like. Other example embodiments may comprise communication networks comprising devices such as base stations, wireless devices (or user equipment: UE), servers, switches, antennas, and/or the like.

FIG. 11A, FIG. 11B, FIG. 11C, FIG. 11D, FIG. 11E, and FIG. 11F are example diagrams for architectures of tight interworking between 5G RAN and LTE RAN as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. The tight interworking may enable a multiple RX/TX UE in RRC_CONNECTED to be configured to utilize radio resources provided by two schedulers located in two base stations (e.g. (e)LTE eNB and gNB) connected via a non-ideal or ideal backhaul over the Xx interface between LTE eNB and gNB or the Xn interface between eLTE eNB and gNB. Base stations involved in tight interworking for a certain UE may assume two different roles: a base station may either act as a master base station or as a secondary base station. In tight interworking, a UE may be connected to one master base station and one secondary base station. Mechanisms implemented in tight interworking may be extended to cover more than two base stations.

In FIG. 11A and FIG. 11B, a master base station may be an LTE eNB, which may be connected to EPC nodes (e.g. to an MME via the S 1-C interface and to an S-GW via the S1-U interface), and a secondary base station may be a gNB, which may be a non-standalone node having a control plane connection via an Xx-C interface to an LTE eNB. In the tight interworking architecture of FIG. 11A, a user plane for a gNB may be connected to an S-GW through an LTE eNB via an Xx-U interface between LTE eNB and gNB and an S1-U interface between LTE eNB and S-GW. In the architecture of FIG. 11B, a user plane for a gNB may be connected directly to an S-GW via an S1-U interface between gNB and S-GW.

In FIG. 11C and FIG. 11D, a master base station may be a gNB, which may be connected to NGC nodes (e.g. to a control plane core node via the NG-C interface and to a user plane core node via the NG-U interface), and a secondary base station may be an eLTE eNB, which may be a non-standalone node having a control plane connection via an Xn-C interface to a gNB. In the tight interworking architecture of FIG. 11C, a user plane for an eLTE eNB may be connected to a user plane core node through a gNB via an Xn-U interface between eLTE eNB and gNB and an NG-U interface between gNB and user plane core node. In the architecture of FIG. 11D, a user plane for an eLTE eNB may be connected directly to a user plane core node via an NG-U interface between eLTE eNB and user plane core node.

In FIG. 11E and FIG. 11F, a master base station may be an eLTE eNB, which may be connected to NGC nodes (e.g. to a control plane core node via the NG-C interface and to a user plane core node via the NG-U interface), and a secondary base station may be a gNB, which may be a non-standalone node having a control plane connection via an Xn-C interface to an eLTE eNB. In the tight interworking architecture of FIG. 11E, a user plane for a gNB may be connected to a user plane core node through an eLTE eNB via an Xn-U interface between eLTE eNB and gNB and an NG-U interface between eLTE eNB and user plane core node. In the architecture of FIG. 11F, a user plane for a gNB may be connected directly to a user plane core node via an NG-U interface between gNB and user plane core node.

FIG. 12A, FIG. 12B, and FIG. 12C are example diagrams for radio protocol structures of tight interworking bearers as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. In FIG. 12A, an LTE eNB may be a master base station, and a gNB may be a secondary base station. In FIG. 12B, a gNB may be a master base station, and an eLTE eNB may be a secondary base station. In FIG. 12C, an eLTE eNB may be a master base station, and a gNB may be a secondary base station. In 5G network, the radio protocol architecture that a particular bearer uses may depend on how the bearer is setup. Three example bearers including an MCG bearer, an SCG bearer, and a split bearer as shown in FIG. 12A, FIG. 12B, and FIG. 12C. NR RRC may be located in master base station, and SRBs may be configured as an MCG bearer type and may use the radio resources of the master base station. Tight interworking may also be described as having at least one bearer configured to use radio resources provided by the secondary base station. Tight interworking may or may not be configured/implemented in example embodiments of the disclosure.

In the case of tight interworking, the UE may be configured with two MAC entities: one MAC entity for master base station, and one MAC entity for secondary base station. In tight interworking, the configured set of serving cells for a UE may comprise of two subsets: the Master Cell Group (MCG) containing the serving cells of the master base station, and the Secondary Cell Group (SCG) containing the serving cells of the secondary base station. For a SCG, one or more of the following may be applied: at least one cell in the SCG has a configured UL CC and one of them, named PSCell (or PCell of SCG, or sometimes called PCell), is configured with PUCCH resources; when the SCG is configured, there may be at least one SCG bearer or one split bearer; upon detection of a physical layer problem or a random access problem on a PSCell, or the maximum number of (NR) RLC retransmissions has been reached associated with the SCG, or upon detection of an access problem on a PSCell during a SCG addition or a SCG change: a RRC connection re-establishment procedure may not be triggered, UL transmissions towards cells of the SCG are stopped, a master base station may be informed by the UE of a SCG failure type, for split bearer, the DL data transfer over the master base station is maintained; the RLC AM bearer may be configured for the split bearer; like PCell, PSCell may not be de-activated; PSCell may be changed with a SCG change (e.g. with security key change and a RACH procedure); and/or neither a direct bearer type change between a Split bearer and a SCG bearer nor simultaneous configuration of a SCG and a Split bearer are supported.

With respect to the interaction between a master base station and a secondary base station, one or more of the following principles may be applied: the master base station may maintain the RRM measurement configuration of the UE and may, (e.g., based on received measurement reports, traffic conditions, or bearer types), decide to ask a secondary base station to provide additional resources (serving cells) for a UE; upon receiving a request from the master base station, a secondary base station may create a container that may result in the configuration of additional serving cells for the UE (or decide that it has no resource available to do so); for UE capability coordination, the master base station may provide (part of) the AS configuration and the UE capabilities to the secondary base station; the master base station and the secondary base station may exchange information about a UE configuration by employing of RRC containers (inter-node messages) carried in Xn or Xx messages; the secondary base station may initiate a reconfiguration of its existing serving cells (e.g., PUCCH towards the secondary base station); the secondary base station may decide which cell is the PSCell within the SCG; the master base station may not change the content of the RRC configuration provided by the secondary base station; in the case of a SCG addition and a SCG SCell addition, the master base station may provide the latest measurement results for the SCG cell(s); both a master base station and a secondary base station may know the SFN and subframe offset of each other by OAM, (e.g., for the purpose of DRX alignment and identification of a measurement gap). In an example, when adding a new SCG SCell, dedicated RRC signaling may be used for sending required system information of the cell as for CA, except for the SFN acquired from a MIB of the PSCell of a SCG.

FIG. 13A and FIG. 13B are example diagrams for gNB deployment scenarios as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. In the non-centralized deployment scenario in FIG. 13A, the full protocol stack (e.g. NR RRC, NR PDCP, NR RLC, NR MAC, and NR PHY) may be supported at one node. In the centralized deployment scenario in FIG. 13B, upper layers of gNB may be located in a Central Unit (CU), and lower layers of gNB may be located in Distributed Units (DU). The CU-DU interface (e.g. Fs interface) connecting CU and DU may be ideal or non-ideal. Fs-C may provide a control plane connection over Fs interface, and Fs-U may provide a user plane connection over Fs interface. In the centralized deployment, different functional split options between CU and DUs may be possible by locating different protocol layers (RAN functions) in CU and DU. The functional split may support flexibility to move RAN functions between CU and DU depending on service requirements and/or network environments. The functional split option may change during operation after Fs interface setup procedure, or may change only in Fs setup procedure (i.e. static during operation after Fs setup procedure).

FIG. 14 is an example diagram for different functional split option examples of the centralized gNB deployment scenario as per an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. In the split option example 1, an NR RRC may be in CU, and NR PDCP, NR RLC, NR MAC, NR PHY, and RF may be in DU. In the split option example 2, an NR RRC and NR PDCP may be in CU, and NR RLC, NR MAC, NR PHY, and RF may be in DU. In the split option example 3, an NR RRC, NR PDCP, and partial function of NR RLC may be in CU, and the other partial function of NR RLC, NR MAC, NR PHY, and RF may be in DU. In the split option example 4, an NR RRC, NR PDCP, and NR RLC may be in CU, and NR MAC, NR PHY, and RF may be in DU. In the split option example 5, an NR RRC, NR PDCP, NR RLC, and partial function of NR MAC may be in CU, and the other partial function of NR MAC, NR PHY, and RF may be in DU. In the split option example 6, an NR RRC, NR PDCP, NR RLC, and NR MAC may be in CU, and NR PHY and RF may be in DU. In the split option example 7, an NR RRC, NR PDCP, NR RLC, NR MAC, and partial function of NR PHY may be in CU, and the other partial function of NR PHY and RF may be in DU. In the split option example 8, an NR RRC, NR PDCP, NR RLC, NR MAC, and NR PHY may be in CU, and RF may be in DU.

The functional split may be configured per CU, per DU, per UE, per bearer, per slice, or with other granularities. In per CU split, a CU may have a fixed split, and DUs may be configured to match the split option of CU. In per DU split, a DU may be configured with a different split, and a CU may provide different split options for different DUs. In per UE split, a gNB (CU and DU) may provide different split options for different UEs. In per bearer split, different split options may be utilized for different bearer types. In per slice splice, different split options may be applied for different slices.

In an example embodiment, the new radio access network (new RAN) may support different network slices, which may allow differentiated treatment customized to support different service requirements with end to end scope. The new RAN may provide a differentiated handling of traffic for different network slices that may be pre-configured, and may allow a single RAN node to support multiple slices. The new RAN may support selection of a RAN part for a given network slice, by one or more slice ID(s) or NSSAI(s) provided by a UE or a NGC (e.g. NG CP). The slice ID(s) or NSSAI(s) may identify one or more of pre-configured network slices in a PLMN. For initial attach, a UE may provide a slice ID and/or an NSSAI, and a RAN node (e.g. gNB) may use the slice ID or the NSSAI for routing an initial NAS signaling to an NGC control plane function (e.g. NG CP). If a UE does not provide any slice ID or NSSAI, a RAN node may send a NAS signaling to a default NGC control plane function. For subsequent accesses, the UE may provide a temporary ID for a slice identification, which may be assigned by the NGC control plane function, to enable a RAN node to route the NAS message to a relevant NGC control plane function. The new RAN may support resource isolation between slices. The RAN resource isolation may be achieved by avoiding that shortage of shared resources in one slice breaks a service level agreement for another slice.

A New Radio (NR) system may support both single beam and multi-beam operations. In a multi-beam system, a base station (e.g., gNB) may perform a downlink beam sweeping to provide coverage for downlink Synchronization Signals (SSs) and common control channels. A User Equipment (UE) may perform an uplink beam sweeping for uplink direction to access a cell. In a single beam scenario, a gNB may configure time-repetition transmission for one SS block, which may comprise at least Primary Synchronization Signal (PSS), Secondary Synchronization Signal (SSS), and Physical Broadcast Channel (PBCH), with a wide beam. In a multi-beam scenario, a gNB may configure at least some of these signals and physical channels in multiple beams. A UE may identify at least OFDM symbol index, slot index in a radio frame and radio frame number from an SS block.

In an example, in an RRC_INACTIVE state or RRC_IDLE state, a UE may assume that SS blocks form an SS burst, and an SS burst set. An SS burst set may have a given periodicity. In multi-beam scenarios, SS blocks may be transmitted in multiple beams, together forming an SS burst. One or more SS blocks may be transmitted on one beam. A beam has a steering direction. If multiple SS bursts are transmitted with beams, these SS bursts together may form an SS burst set as shown in FIG. 15. A base station 1501 (e.g., a gNB in NR) may transmit SS bursts 1502A to 1502H during time periods 1503. A plurality of these SS bursts may comprise an SS burst set, such as an SS burst set 1504 (e.g., SS bursts 1502A and 1502E). An SS burst set may comprise any number of a plurality of SS bursts 1502A to 1502H. Each SS burst within an SS burst set may transmitted at a fixed or variable periodicity during time periods 1503.

An SS may be based on Cyclic Prefix-Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (CP-OFDM). The SS may comprise at least two types of synchronization signals; NR-PSS (Primary synchronization signal) and NR-SSS (Secondary synchronization signal). NR-PSS may be defined at least for initial symbol boundary synchronization to the NR cell. NR-SSS may be defined for detection of NR cell ID or at least part of NR cell ID. NR-SSS detection may be based on the fixed time/frequency relationship with NR-PSS resource position irrespective of duplex mode and beam operation type at least within a given frequency range and CP overhead. Normal CP may be supported for NR-PSS and NR-SSS.

The NR may comprise at least one physical broadcast channel (NR-PBCH). When a gNB transmit (or broadcast) the NR-PBCH, a UE may decode the NR-PBCH based on the fixed relationship with NR-PSS and/or NR-SSS resource position irrespective of duplex mode and beam operation type at least within a given frequency range and CP overhead. NR-PBCH may be a non-scheduled broadcast channel carrying at least a part of minimum system information with fixed payload size and periodicity predefined in the specification depending on carrier frequency range.

In single beam and multi-beam scenarios, NR may comprise an SS block that may support time (frequency, and/or spatial) division multiplexing of NR-PSS, NR-SSS, and NR-PBCH. A gNB may transmit NR-PSS, NR-SSS and/or NR-PBCH within an SS block. For a given frequency band, an SS block may correspond to N OFDM symbols based on the default subcarrier spacing, and N may be a constant. The signal multiplexing structure may be fixed in NR. A wireless device may identify, e.g., from an SS block, an OFDM symbol index, a slot index in a radio frame, and a radio frame number from an SS block.

A NR may support an SS burst comprising one or more SS blocks. An SS burst set may comprise one or more SS bursts. For example, a number of SS bursts within a SS burst set may be finite. From physical layer specification perspective, NR may support at least one periodicity of SS burst set. From UE perspective, SS burst set transmission may be periodic, and UE may assume that a given SS block is repeated with an SS burst set periodicity.

Within an SS burst set periodicity, NR-PBCH repeated in one or more SS blocks may change. A set of possible SS block time locations may be specified per frequency band in an RRC message. The maximum number of SS-blocks within SS burst set may be carrier frequency dependent. The position(s) of actual transmitted SS-blocks may be informed at least for helping CONNECTED/IDLE mode measurement, for helping CONNECTED mode UE to receive downlink (DL) data/control in one or more SS-blocks, or for helping IDLE mode UE to receive DL data/control in one or more SS-blocks. A UE may not assume that the gNB transmits the same number of physical beam(s). A UE may not assume the same physical beam(s) across different SS-blocks within an SS burst set. For an initial cell selection, UE may assume default SS burst set periodicity which may be broadcast via an RRC message and frequency band-dependent. At least for multi-beams operation case, the time index of SS-block may be indicated to the UE.

For CONNECTED and IDLE mode UEs, NR may support network indication of SS burst set periodicity and information to derive measurement timing/duration (e.g., time window for NR-SS detection). A gNB may provide (e.g., via broadcasting an RRC message) one SS burst set periodicity information per frequency carrier to UE and information to derive measurement timing/duration if possible. In case that one SS burst set periodicity and one information regarding timing/duration are indicated, a UE may assume the periodicity and timing/duration for all cells on the same carrier. If a gNB does not provide indication of SS burst set periodicity and information to derive measurement timing/duration, a UE may assume a predefined periodicity, e.g., 5 ms, as the SS burst set periodicity. NR may support set of SS burst set periodicity values for adaptation and network indication.

For initial access, a UE may assume a signal corresponding to a specific subcarrier spacing of NR-PSS/SSS in a given frequency band given by a NR specification. For NR-PSS, a Zadoff-Chu (ZC) sequence may be employed as a sequence for NR-PSS. NR may define at least one basic sequence length for a SS in case of sequence-based SS design. The number of antenna port of NR-PSS may be 1. For NR-PBCH transmission, NR may support a fixed number of antenna port(s). A UE may not be required for a blind detection of NR-PBCH transmission scheme or number of antenna ports. A UE may assume the same PBCH numerology as that of NR-SS. For the minimum system information delivery, NR-PBCH may comprise a part of minimum system information. NR-PBCH contents may comprise at least a part of the SFN (system frame number) or CRC. A gNB may transmit the remaining minimum system information in shared downlink channel via NR-PDSCH.

In a multi-beam example, one or more of PSS, SSS, or PBCH signals may be repeated for a cell, e.g., to support cell selection, cell reselection, and/or initial access procedures. For an SS burst, an associated PBCH or a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH) scheduling system information may be broadcasted by a base station to multiple wireless devices. The PDSCH may be indicated by a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) in a common search space. The system information may comprise a physical random access channel (PRACH) configuration for a beam. For a beam, a base station (e.g., a gNB in NR) may have a RACH configuration which may include a PRACH preamble pool, time and/or frequency radio resources, and other power related parameters. A wireless device may use a PRACH preamble from a RACH configuration to initiate a contention-based RACH procedure or a contention-free RACH procedure. A wireless device may perform a 4-step RACH procedure, which may be a contention-based RACH procedure or a contention-free RACH procedure. The wireless device may select a beam associated with an SS block that may have the best receiving signal quality. The wireless device may successfully detect a cell identifier associated with the cell and decode system information with a RACH configuration. The wireless device may use one PRACH preamble and select one PRACH resource from RACH resources indicated by the system information associated with the selected beam. A PRACH resource may comprise at least one of: a PRACH index indicating a PRACH preamble, a PRACH format, a PRACH numerology, time and/or frequency radio resource allocation, power setting of a PRACH transmission, and/or other radio resource parameters. For a contention-free RACH procedure, the PRACH preamble and resource may be indicated in a DCI or other high layer signaling.

FIG. 16 shows an example of a random access procedure (e.g., via a RACH) that may include sending, by a base station, one or more SS blocks. A wireless device 1620 (e.g., a UE) may transmit one or more preambles to a base station 1621 (e.g., a gNB in NR). Each preamble transmission by the wireless device may be associated with a separate random access procedure, such as shown in FIG. 16. The random access procedure may begin at step 1601 with a base station 1621 (e.g., a gNB in NR) sending a first SS block to a wireless device 1621 (e.g., a UE). Any of the SS blocks may comprise one or more of a PSS, SSS, tertiary synchronization signal (TSS), or PBCH signal. The first SS block in step 1601 may be associated with a first PRACH configuration. At step 1602, the base station 1621 may send to the wireless device 1620 a second SS block that may be associated with a second PRACH configuration. At step 1603, the base station 1621 may send to the wireless device 1620 a third SS block that may be associated with a third PRACH configuration. At step 1604, the base station 1621 may send to the wireless device 1620 a fourth SS block that may be associated with a fourth PRACH configuration. Any number of SS blocks may be sent in the same manner in addition to, or replacing, steps 1603 and 1604. An SS burst may comprise any number of SS blocks. For example, SS burst 1610 comprises the three SS blocks sent during steps 1602-1604.

The wireless device 1620 may send to the base station 1621 a preamble, at step 1605, e.g., after or in response to receiving one or more SS blocks or SS bursts. The preamble may comprise a PRACH preamble, and may be referred to as RA Msg 1. The PRACH preamble may be transmitted in step 1605 according to or based on a PRACH configuration that may be received in an SS block (e.g., one of the SS blocks from steps 1601-1604) that may be determined to be the best SS block beam. The wireless device 1620 may determine a best SS block beam from among SS blocks it may receive prior to sending the PRACH preamble. The base station 1621 may send a random access response (RAR), which may be referred to as RA Msg2, at step 1606, e.g., after or in response to receiving the PRACH preamble. The RAR may be transmitted in step 1606 via a DL beam that corresponds to the SS block beam associated with the PRACH configuration. The base station 1621 may determine the best SS block beam from among SS blocks it previously sent prior to receiving the PRACH preamble. The base station 1621 may receive the PRACH preamble according to or based on the PRACH configuration associated with the best SS block beam.

The wireless device 1620 may send to the base station 1621 an RRCConnectionRequest and/or RRCConnectionResumeRequest message, which may be referred to as RA Msg3, at step 1607, e.g., after or in response to receiving the RAR. The base station 1621 may send to the wireless device 1620 an RRCConnectionSetup and/or RRCConnectionResume message, which may be referred to as RA Msg4, at step 1608, e.g., after or in response to receiving the RRCConnectionRequest and/or RRCConnectionResumeRequest message. The wireless device 1620 may send to the base station 1621 an RRCConnectionSetupComplete and/or RRCConnectionResumeComplete message, which may be referred to as RA Msg5, at step 1609, e.g., after or in response to receiving the RRCConnectionSetup and/or RRCConnectionResume. An RRC connection may be established between the wireless device 1620 and the base station 1621, and the random access procedure may end, e.g., after or in response to receiving the RRCConnectionSetupComplete and/or RRCConnectionResumeComplete message.

A best beam, including but not limited to a best SS block beam, may be determined based on a channel state information reference signal (CSI-RS). A wireless device may use a CSI-RS in a multi-beam system for estimating the beam quality of the links between the wireless device and a base station. For example, based on a measurement of a CSI-RS, a wireless device may report CSI for downlink channel adaption. A CSI parameter may include a precoding matrix index (PMI), a channel quality index (CQI) value, and/or a rank indicator (RI). A wireless device may report a beam index based on a reference signal received power (RSRP) measurement on a CSI-RS. The wireless device may report the beam index in a CSI resource indication (CRI) for downlink beam selection. A base station may transmit a CSI-RS via a CSI-RS resource, such as via one or more antenna ports, or via one or more time and/or frequency radio resources. A beam may be associated with a CSI-RS. A CSI-RS may comprise an indication of a beam direction. Each of a plurality of beams may be associated with one of a plurality of CSI-RSs. A CSI-RS resource may be configured in a cell-specific way, e.g., via common RRC signaling. Additionally or alternatively, a CSI-RS resource may be configured in a wireless device-specific way, e.g., via dedicated RRC signaling and/or layer 1 and/or layer 2 (L1/L2) signaling. Multiple wireless devices in or served by a cell may measure a cell-specific CSI-RS resource. A dedicated subset of wireless devices in or served by a cell may measure a wireless device-specific CSI-RS resource. A base station may transmit a CSI-RS resource periodically, using aperiodic transmission, or using a multi-shot or semi-persistent transmission. In a periodic transmission, a base station may transmit the configured CSI-RS resource using a configured periodicity in the time domain. In an aperiodic transmission, a base station may transmit the configured CSI-RS resource in a dedicated time slot. In a multi-shot or semi-persistent transmission, a base station may transmit the configured CSI-RS resource in a configured period. A base station may configure different CSI-RS resources in different terms for different purposes. Different terms may include, e.g., cell-specific, device-specific, periodic, aperiodic, multi-shot, or other terms. Different purposes may include, e.g., beam management, CQI reporting, or other purposes.

FIG. 17 shows an example of transmitting CSI-RSs periodically for a beam. A base station 1701 may transmit a beam in a predefined order in the time domain, such as during time periods 1703. Beams used for a CSI-RS transmission, such as for CSI-RS 1704 in transmissions 1702C and/or 1703E, may have a different beam width relative to a beam width for SS-blocks transmission, such as for SS blocks 1702A, 1702B, 1702D, and 1702F-1702H. Additionally or alternatively, a beam width of a beam used for a CSI-RS transmission may have the same value as a beam width for an SS block. Some or all of one or more CSI-RSs may be included in one or more beams. An SS block may occupy a number of OFDM symbols (e.g., 4), and a number of subcarriers (e.g., 240), carrying a synchronization sequence signal. The synchronization sequence signal may identify a cell.

FIG. 18 shows an example of a CSI-RS that may be mapped in time and frequency domains. Each square shown in FIG. 18 may represent a resource block within a bandwidth of a cell. Each resource block may comprise a number of subcarriers. A cell may have a bandwidth comprising a number of resource blocks. A base station (e.g., a gNB in NR) may transmit one or more Radio Resource Control (RRC) messages comprising CSI-RS resource configuration parameters for one or more CSI-RS. One or more of the following parameters may be configured by higher layer signaling for each CSI-RS resource configuration: CSI-RS resource configuration identity, number of CSI-RS ports, CSI-RS configuration (e.g., symbol and RE locations in a subframe), CSI-RS subframe configuration (e.g., subframe location, offset, and periodicity in a radio frame), CSI-RS power parameter, CSI-RS sequence parameter, CDM type parameter, frequency density, transmission comb, QCL parameters (e.g., QCL-scramblingidentity, crs-portscount, mbsfn-subframeconfiglist, csi-rs-configZPid, qcl-csi-rs-configNZPid), and/or other radio resource parameters.

FIG. 18 shows three beams that may be configured for a wireless device, e.g., in a wireless device-specific configuration. Any number of additional beams (e.g., represented by the column of blank squares) or fewer beams may be included. Beam 1 may be allocated with CSI-RS 1 that may be transmitted in some subcarriers in a resource block (RB) of a first symbol. Beam 2 may be allocated with CSI-RS 2 that may be transmitted in some subcarriers in a RB of a second symbol. Beam 3 may be allocated with CSI-RS 3 that may be transmitted in some subcarriers in a RB of a third symbol. All subcarriers in a RB may not necessarily be used for transmitting a particular CSI-RS (e.g., CSI-RS 1) on an associated beam (e.g., beam 1) for that CSI-RS. By using frequency division multiplexing (FDM), other subcarriers, not used for beam 1 for the wireless device in the same RB, may be used for other CSI-RS transmissions associated with a different beam for other wireless devices. Additionally or alternatively, by using time domain multiplexing (TDM), beams used for a wireless device may be configured such that different beams (e.g., beam 1, beam 2, and beam 3) for the wireless device may be transmitted using some symbols different from beams of other wireless devices.

Beam management may use a device-specific configured CSI-RS. In a beam management procedure, a wireless device may monitor a channel quality of a beam pair link comprising a transmitting beam by a base station (e.g., a gNB in NR) and a receiving beam by the wireless device (e.g., a UE). When multiple CSI-RSs associated with multiple beams are configured, a wireless device may monitor multiple beam pair links between the base station and the wireless device.

A wireless device may transmit one or more beam management reports to a base station. A beam management report may indicate one or more beam pair quality parameters, comprising, e.g., one or more beam identifications, RSRP, PMI, CQI, and/or RI, of a subset of configured beams.

A base station and/or a wireless device may perform a downlink L1/L2 beam management procedure. One or more downlink L1/L2 beam management procedures may be performed within one or multiple transmission and receiving points (TRPs), such as shown in FIG. 20A and FIG. 20B, respectively.

FIG. 19 shows examples of three beam management procedures, P1, P2, and P3. Procedure P1 may be used to enable a wireless device measurement on different transmit (Tx) beams of a TRP (or multiple TRPs), e.g., to support a selection of Tx beams and/or wireless device receive (Rx) beam(s) (shown as ovals in the top row and bottom row, respectively, of P1). Beamforming at a TRP (or multiple TRPs) may include, e.g., an intra-TRP and/or inter-TRP Tx beam sweep from a set of different beams (shown, in the top rows of P1 and P2, as ovals rotated in a counter-clockwise direction indicated by the dashed arrow). Beamforming at a wireless device 1901, may include, e.g., a wireless device Rx beam sweep from a set of different beams (shown, in the bottom rows of P1 and P3, as ovals rotated in a clockwise direction indicated by the dashed arrow). Procedure P2 may be used to enable a wireless device measurement on different Tx beams of a TRP (or multiple TRPs) (shown, in the top row of P2, as ovals rotated in a counter-clockwise direction indicated by the dashed arrow), e.g., which may change inter-TRP and/or intra-TRP Tx beam(s). Procedure P2 may be performed, e.g., on a smaller set of beams for beam refinement than in procedure P1. P2 may be a particular example of P1. Procedure P3 may be used to enable a wireless device measurement on the same Tx beam (shown as oval in P3), e.g., to change a wireless device Rx beam if the wireless device 1901 uses beamforming.

A wireless device 1901 (e.g., a UE) and/or a base station 1902 (e.g., a gNB) may trigger a beam failure recovery mechanism. The wireless device 1901 may trigger a beam failure recovery (BFR) request transmission, e.g., if a beam failure event occurs. A beam failure event may include, e.g., a determination that a quality of beam pair link(s) of an associated control channel is unsatisfactory. A determination of an unsatisfactory quality of beam pair link(s) of an associated channel may be based on the quality falling below a threshold and/or an expiration of a timer.

The wireless device 1901 may measure a quality of beam pair link(s) using one or more reference signals (RS). One or more SS blocks, one or more CSI-RS resources, and/or one or more demodulation reference signals (DM-RSs) of a PBCH may be used as a RS for measuring a quality of a beam pair link. Each of the one or more CSI-RS resources may be associated with a CSI-RS resource index (CRI). A quality of a beam pair link may be based on one or more of an RSRP value, reference signal received quality (RSRQ) value, and/or CSI value measured on RS resources. The base station 1902 may indicate that an RS resource, e.g., that may be used for measuring a beam pair link quality, is quasi-co-located (QCLed) with one or more DM-RSs of a control channel. The RS resource and the DM-RSs of the control channel may be QCLed when the channel characteristics from a transmission via an RS to the wireless device 1901, and the channel characteristics from a transmission via a control channel to the wireless device, are similar or the same under a configured criterion.

FIG. 20A shows an example of a beam failure event involving a single TRP. A single TRP such as at a base station 2001 may transmit, to a wireless device 2002, a first beam 2003 and a second beam 2004. A beam failure event may occur if, e.g., a serving beam, such as the second beam 2004, is blocked by a moving vehicle 2005 or other obstruction (e.g., building, tree, land, or any object) and configured beams (e.g., the first beam 2003 and/or the second beam 2004), including the serving beam, are received from the single TRP. The wireless device 2002 may trigger a mechanism to recover from beam failure when a beam failure occurs.

FIG. 20B shows an example of a beam failure event involving multiple TRPs. Multiple TRPs, such as at a first base station 2006 and at a second base station 2009, may transmit, to a wireless device 2008, a first beam 2007 (e.g., from the first base station 2006) and a second beam 2010 (e.g., from the second base station 2009). A beam failure event may occur when, e.g., a serving beam, such as the second beam 2010, is blocked by a moving vehicle 2011 or other obstruction (e.g., building, tree, land, or any object) and configured beams (e.g., the first beam 2007 and/or the second beam 2010) are received from multiple TRPs. The wireless device 2008 may trigger a mechanism to recover from beam failure when a beam failure occurs.

A wireless device may monitor a PDCCH, such as a New Radio PDCCH (NR-PDCCH), on M beam pair links simultaneously, where M>1 and the maximum value of M may depend at least on the wireless device capability. Such monitoring may increase robustness against beam pair link blocking. A base station may transmit, and the wireless device may receive, one or more messages configured to cause the wireless device to monitor NR-PDCCH on different beam pair link(s) and/or in different NR-PDCCH OFDM symbol.

A base station may transmit higher layer signaling, and/or a MAC control element (MAC CE), that may comprise parameters related to a wireless device Rx beam setting for monitoring NR-PDCCH on multiple beam pair links. A base station may transmit one or more indications of a spatial QCL assumption between a first DL RS antenna port(s) and a second DL RS antenna port(s). The first DL RS antenna port(s) may be for one or more of a cell-specific CSI-RS, device-specific CSI-RS, SS block, PBCH with DM-RSs of PBCH, and/or PBCH without DM-RSs of PBCH. The second DL RS antenna port(s) may be for demodulation of a DL control channel. Signaling for a beam indication for a NR-PDCCH (e.g., configuration to monitor NR-PDCCH) may be via MAC CE signaling, RRC signaling, DCI signaling, or specification-transparent and/or an implicit method, and any combination thereof.

For reception of unicast DL data channel, a base station may indicate spatial QCL parameters between DL RS antenna port(s) and DM-RS antenna port(s) of DL data channel. A base station may transmit DCI (e.g., downlink grants) comprising information indicating the RS antenna port(s). The information may indicate the RS antenna port(s) which may be QCLed with DM-RS antenna port(s). A different set of DM-RS antenna port(s) for the DL data channel may be indicated as a QCL with a different set of RS antenna port(s).

If a base station transmits a signal indicating a spatial QCL parameters between CSI-RS and DM-RS for PDCCH, a wireless device may use CSI-RSs QCLed with DM-RS for a PDCCH to monitor beam pair link quality. If a beam failure event occurs, the wireless device may transmit a beam failure recovery request, such as by a determined configuration.

If a wireless device transmits a beam failure recovery request, e.g., via an uplink physical channel or signal, a base station may detect that there is a beam failure event, for the wireless device, by monitoring the uplink physical channel or signal. The base station may initiate a beam recovery mechanism to recover the beam pair link for transmitting PDCCH between the base station and the wireless device. The base station may transmit one or more control signals, to the wireless device, e.g., after or in response to receiving the beam failure recovery request. A beam recovery mechanism may be, e.g., an L1 scheme, or a higher layer scheme.

A base station may transmit one or more messages comprising, e.g., configuration parameters of an uplink physical channel and/or a signal for transmitting a beam failure recovery request. The uplink physical channel and/or signal may be based on at least one of the following: a non-contention based PRACH (e.g., a beam failure recovery PRACH or BFR-PRACH), which may use a resource orthogonal to resources of other PRACH transmissions; a PUCCH (e.g., beam failure recovery PUCCH or BFR-PUCCH); and/or a contention-based PRACH resource. Combinations of these candidate signal and/or channels may be configured by a base station.

A gNB may respond a confirmation message to a UE after receiving one or multiple BFR request. The confirmation message may include the CRI associated with the candidate beam the UE indicates in the one or multiple BFR request. The confirmation message may be a L1 control information.

Secondary Cell Activation/Deactivation Mechanism

In carrier aggregation (CA), two or more component carriers (CCs) may be aggregated. A wireless device may simultaneously receive or transmit on one or more CCs, depending on capabilities of the wireless device, using the technique of CA. In an example, a wireless device may support CA for contiguous CCs and/or for non-contiguous CCs. CCs may be organized into cells. For example, CCs may be organized into one primary cell (PCell) and one or more secondary cells (SCells).

When configured with CA, a wireless device may have one RRC connection with a network. During an RRC connection establishment/re-establishment/handover, a cell providing NAS mobility information may be a serving cell. During an RRC connection re-establishment/handover procedure, a cell providing a security input may be a serving cell. In an example, the serving cell may denote a PCell. In an example, a gNB may transmit, to a wireless device, one or more messages comprising configuration parameters of a plurality of one or more SCells, depending on capabilities of the wireless device.

When configured with CA, a base station and/or a wireless device may employ an activation/deactivation mechanism of an SCell to improve battery or power consumption of the wireless device. When a wireless device is configured with one or more SCells, a gNB may activate or deactivate at least one of the one or more SCells. Upon configuration of an SCell, the SCell may be deactivated unless an SCell state associated with the SCell is set to “activated” or “dormant”.

In an example, a wireless device may activate/deactivate an SCell in response to receiving an SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE.

In an example, a gNB may transmit, to a wireless device, one or more messages comprising an SCell timer (e.g., sCellDeactivationTimer). In an example, a wireless device may deactivate an SCell in response to an expiry of the SCell timer.

When a wireless device receives an SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE activating an SCell, the wireless device may activate the SCell. In response to the activating the SCell, the wireless device may perform operations comprising: SRS transmissions on the SCell; CQI/PMI/RI/CRI reporting for the SCell; PDCCH monitoring on the SCell; PDCCH monitoring for the SCell; and/or PUCCH transmissions on the SCell.

In an example, in response to the activating the SCell, the wireless device may start or restart a first SCell timer (e.g., sCellDeactivationTimer) associated with the SCell. The wireless device may start or restart the first SCell timer in the slot when the SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE activating the SCell has been received. In an example, in response to the activating the SCell, the wireless device may (re-)initialize one or more suspended configured uplink grants of a configured grant Type 1 associated with the SCell according to a stored configuration. In an example, in response to the activating the SCell, the wireless device may trigger PHR.

When a wireless device receives an SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE deactivating an activated SCell, the wireless device may deactivate the activated SCell. In an example, when a first SCell timer (e.g., sCellDeactivationTimer) associated with an activated SCell expires, the wireless device may deactivate the activated SCell. In response to the deactivating the activated SCell, the wireless device may stop the first SCell timer associated with the activated SCell. In an example, in response to the deactivating the activated SCell, the wireless device may clear one or more configured downlink assignments and/or one or more configured uplink grants of a configured uplink grant Type 2 associated with the activated SCell. In an example, in response to the deactivating the activated SCell, the wireless device may: suspend one or more configured uplink grants of a configured uplink grant Type 1 associated with the activated SCell; and/or flush HARQ buffers associated with the activated SCell.

In an example, when an SCell is deactivated, a wireless device may not perform operations comprising: transmitting SRS on the SCell; reporting CQI/PMI/RI/CRI for the SCell; transmitting on UL-SCH on the SCell; transmitting on RACH on the SCell; monitoring at least one first PDCCH on the SCell; monitoring at least one second PDCCH for the SCell; and/or transmitting a PUCCH on the SCell.

In an example, when at least one first PDCCH on an activated SCell indicates an uplink grant or a downlink assignment, a wireless device may restart a first SCell timer (e.g., sCellDeactivationTimer) associated with the activated SCell. In an example, when at least one second PDCCH on a serving cell (e.g. a PCell or an SCell configured with PUCCH, i.e. PUCCH SCell) scheduling the activated SCell indicates an uplink grant or a downlink assignment for the activated SCell, a wireless device may restart the first SCell timer (e.g., sCellDeactivationTimer) associated with the activated SCell.

In an example, when an SCell is deactivated, if there is an ongoing random access procedure on the SCell, a wireless device may abort the ongoing random access procedure on the SCell.

FIG. 21A shows an example of an SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE of one octet. A first MAC PDU subheader with a first LCID (e.g., ‘111010’) may identify the SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE of one octet. The SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE of one octet may have a fixed size. The SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE of one octet may comprise a single octet. The single octet may comprise a first number of C-fields (e.g. seven) and a second number of R-fields (e.g., one).

FIG. 21B shows an example of an SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE of four octets. A second MAC PDU subheader with a second LCID (e.g., ‘111001’) may identify the SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE of four octets. The SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE of four octets may have a fixed size. The SCell Activation/Deactivation MAC CE of four octets may comprise four octets. The four octets may comprise a third number of C-fields (e.g., 31) and a fourth number of R-fields (e.g., 1).

In FIG. 21A and/or FIG. 21B, a C_(i) field may indicate an activation/deactivation status of an SCell with an SCell index i if an SCell with SCell index i is configured. In an example, when the C_(i) field is set to one, an SCell with an SCell index i may be activated. In an example, when the C_(i) field is set to zero, an SCell with an SCell index i may be deactivated. In an example, if there is no SCell configured with SCell index i, the wireless device may ignore the C_(i) field. In FIG. 21A and FIG. 21B, an R field may indicate a reserved bit. The R field may be set to zero.

FIG. 22A and FIG. 22B show timeline when a UE receives a MAC activation command. When a UE receives a MAC activation command for a secondary cell in subframe n, the corresponding actions in the MAC layer shall be applied no later than the minimum requirement defined in 3GPP TS 36.133 or TS 38. 133 and no earlier than subframe n+8, except for the following: the actions related to CSI reporting and the actions related to the sCellDeactivationTimer associated with the secondary cell, which shall be applied in subframe n+8. When a UE receives a MAC deactivation command for a secondary cell or the sCellDeactivationTimer associated with the secondary cell expires in subframe n, the corresponding actions in the MAC layer shall apply no later than the minimum requirement defined in 3GPP TS 36.133 or TS 38.133, except for the actions related to CSI reporting which shall be applied in subframe n+8.

When a UE receives a MAC activation command for a secondary cell in subframe n, the actions related to CSI reporting and the actions related to the sCellDeactivationTimer associated with the secondary cell, are applied in subframe n+8. When a UE receives a MAC deactivation command for a secondary cell or other deactivation conditions are met (e.g. the sCellDeactivationTimer associated with the secondary cell expires) in subframe n, the actions related to CSI reporting are applied in subframe n+8. The UE starts reporting invalid or valid CSI for the Scell at the (n+8)^(th) subframe, and start or restart the sCellDeactivationTimer when receiving the MAC CE activating the SCell in the n^(th) subframe. For some UE having slow activation, it may report an invalid CSI (out-of-range CSI) at the (n+8)^(th) subframe, for some UE having a quick activation, it may report a valid CSI at the (n+8)^(th) subframe.

When a UE receives a MAC activation command for an SCell in subframe n, the UE starts reporting CQI/PMI/RI/PTI for the SCell at subframe n+8 and starts or restarts the sCellDeactivationTimer associated with the SCell at subframe n+8. It is important to define the timing of these actions for both UE and eNB. For example, sCellDeactivationTimer is maintained in both eNB and UE and it is important that both UE and eNB stop, start and/or restart this timer in the same TTI. Otherwise, the sCellDeactivationTimer in the UE may not be in-sync with the corresponding sCellDeactivationTimer in the eNB. Also, eNB starts monitoring and receiving CSI (CQI/PMI/RI/PTI) according to the predefined timing in the same TTI and/or after UE starts transmitting the CSI. If the CSI timings in UE and eNB are not coordinated based on a common standard or air interface signaling the network operation may result in inefficient operations and/or errors.

Example of Downlink Control Information (DCI)

FIG. 23 shows DCI formats for an example of 20 MHz FDD operation with 2 Tx antennas at the base station and no carrier aggregation in an LTE system. In a NR system, the DCI formats may comprise at least one of: DCI format 0_0/0_1 indicating scheduling of PUSCH in a cell; DCI format 1_0/1_1 indicating scheduling of PDSCH in a cell; DCI format 2_0 notifying a group of UEs of slot format; DCI format 2_1 notifying a group of UEs of PRB(s) and OFDM symbol(s) where a UE may assume no transmission is intended for the UE; DCI format 2_2 indicating transmission of TPC commands for PUCCH and PUSCH; and/or DCI format 2_3 indicating transmission of a group of TPC commands for SRS transmission by one or more UEs. In an example, a gNB may transmit a DCI via a PDCCH for scheduling decision and power-control commends. More specifically, the DCI may comprise at least one of: downlink scheduling assignments, uplink scheduling grants, power-control commands. The downlink scheduling assignments may comprise at least one of: PDSCH resource indication, transport format, HARQ information, and control information related to multiple antenna schemes, a command for power control of the PUCCH used for transmission of ACK/NACK in response to downlink scheduling assignments. The uplink scheduling grants may comprise at least one of: PUSCH resource indication, transport format, and HARQ related information, a power control command of the PUSCH.

In an example, different types of control information may correspond to different DCI message sizes. For example, supporting spatial multiplexing with noncontiguous allocation of RBs in the frequency domain may require a larger scheduling message in comparison with an uplink grant allowing for frequency-contiguous allocation only. The DCI may be categorized into different DCI formats, where a format corresponds to a certain message size and usage.

In an example, a UE may monitor one or more PDCCH to detect one or more DCI with one or more DCI format. The one or more PDCCH may be transmitted in common search space or UE-specific search space. A UE may monitor PDCCH with only a limited set of DCI format, to save power consumption. For example, a normal UE may not be required to detect a DCI with DCI format 6 which is used for an eMTC UE. The more DCI format to be detected, the more power be consumed at the UE.

In an example, the information in the DCI formats used for downlink scheduling may be organized into different groups, with the field present varying between the DCI formats, including at least one of: resource information, consisting of: carrier indicator (0 or 3 bits), RB allocation; HARQ process number; MCS, NDI, and RV (for the first TB); MCS, NDI and RV (for the second TB); MIMO related information; PDSCH resource-element mapping and QCI; Downlink assignment index (DAI); TPC for PUCCH; SRS request (lbit), triggering one-shot SRS transmission; ACK/NACK offset; DCI format 0/1A indication, used to differentiate between DCI format 1A and 0; and padding if necessary. The MIMO related information may comprise at least one of: PMI, precoding information, transport block swap flag, power offset between PDSCH and reference signal, reference-signal scrambling sequence, number of layers, and/or antenna ports for the transmission.

In an example, the information in the DCI formats used for uplink scheduling may be organized into different groups, with the field present varying between the DCI formats, including at least one of: resource information, consisting of: carrier indicator, resource allocation type, RB allocation; MCS, NDI (for the first TB); MCS, NDI (for the second TB); phase rotation of the uplink DMRS; precoding information; CSI request, requesting an aperiodic CSI report; SRS request (2 bit), used to trigger aperiodic SRS transmission using one of up to three preconfigured settings; uplink index/DAI; TPC for PUSCH; DCI format 0/1A indication; and padding if necessary.

In an example, a gNB may perform CRC scrambling for a DCI, before transmitting the DCI via a PDCCH. The gNB may perform CRC scrambling by bit-wise addition (or Modulo-2 addition or exclusive OR (XOR) operation) of multiple bits of at least one wireless device identifier (e.g., C-RNTI, CS-RNTI, TPC-CS-RNTI, TPC-PUCCH-RNTI, TPC-PUSCH-RNTI, SP CSI C-RNTI, SRS-TPC-RNTI, INT-RNTI, SFI-RNTI, P-RNTI, SI-RNTI, RA-RNTI, and/or MCS-C-RNTI) with the CRC bits of the DCI. The wireless device may check the CRC bits of the DCI, when detecting the DCI. The wireless device may receive the DCI when the CRC is scrambled by a sequence of bits that is the same as the at least one wireless device identifier.

In a NR system, in order to support wide bandwidth operation, a gNB may transmit one or more PDCCH in different control resource sets. A gNB may transmit one or more RRC message comprising configuration parameters of one or more control resource sets. At least one of the one or more control resource sets may comprise at least one of: a first OFDM symbol; a number of consecutive OFDM symbols; a set of resource blocks; a CCE-to-REG mapping; and a REG bundle size, in case of interleaved CCE-to-REG mapping.

Example of Bandwidth Part Management

FIG. 24 shows example of multiple BWP configuration. A gNB may transmit one or more message comprising configuration parameters of one or more bandwidth parts (BWP). The one or more BWPs may have different numerologies. A gNB may transmit one or more control information for cross-BWP scheduling to a UE. One BWP may overlap with another BWP in frequency domain.

A gNB may transmit one or more messages comprising configuration parameters of one or more DL and/or UL BWPs for a cell, with at least one BWP as the active DL or UL BWP, and zero or one BWP as the default DL or UL BWP. For the PCell, the active DL BWP may be the DL BWP on which the UE may monitor one or more PDCCH, and/or receive PDSCH. The active UL BWP is the UL BWP on which the UE may transmit uplink signal. For a secondary cell (SCell) if configured, the active DL BWP may be the DL BWP on which the UE may monitor one or more PDCCH and receive PDSCH when the SCell is activated by receiving a MAC activation/deactivation CE. The active UL BWP is the UL BWP on which the UE may transmit PUCCH (if configured) and/or PUSCH when the SCell is activated by receiving a MAC activation/deactivation CE. Configuration of multiple BWPs may be used to save UE's power consumption. When configured with an active BWP and a default BWP, a UE may switch to the default BWP if there is no activity on the active BWP. For example, a default BWP may be configured with narrow bandwidth, an active BWP may be configured with wide bandwidth. If there is no signal transmitting or receiving, the UE may switch the BWP to the default BWP, which may reduce power consumption.

Switching BWP may be triggered by a DCI or a timer. When a UE receives a DCI indicating DL BWP switching from an active BWP to a new BWP, the UE may monitor PDCCH and/or receive PDSCH on the new BWP. When the UE receives a DCI indicating UL BWP switching from an active BWP to a new BWP, the UE may transmit PUCCH (if configured) and/or PUSCH on the new BWP. A gNB may transmit one or more messages comprising a BWP inactivity timer to a UE. The UE starts the timer when it switches its active DL BWP to a DL BWP other than the default DL BWP. The UE may restart the timer to the initial value when it successfully decodes a DCI to schedule PDSCH(s) in its active DL BWP. The UE may switch its active DL BWP to the default DL BWP when the BWP timer expires.

In an example, a BWP may be configured with: a subcarrier spacing, a cyclic prefix, a number of contiguous PRBs, an offset of the first PRB in the number of contiguous PRBs relative to the first PRB, or Q control resource sets if the BWP is a DL BWP.

In an example, on a SCell, there may be no initial active BWP since the initial access is performed on the Pcell. For example, the initially activated DL BWP and/or UL BWP, when the Scell is activated, may be configured or reconfigured by RRC signaling. In an example, the default BWP of the SCell may also be configured or reconfigured by RRC signaling.

In an example, gNB may configure UE-specific default DL BWP other than initial active BWP after RRC connection, e.g., for the purpose of load balancing. The default BWP may support other connected mode operations (besides operations supported by initial active BWP), e.g., fall back and/or connected mode paging. In this case, the default BWP may comprise common search space, e.g., at least a search space needed for monitoring a pre-emption indication.

In an example, a DL BWP other than the initial active DL BWP may be configured to a UE as the default DL BWP. The reconfiguring the default DL BWP may be due to load balancing and/or different numerologies employed for active DL BWP and initial active DL BWP.

In an example, for a paired spectrum, DL and UL BWPs may be independently activated while, for an unpaired spectrum DL and UL BWPS are jointly activated. In case of bandwidth adaptation, where the bandwidth of the active downlink BWP may be changed, there may, in case of an unpaired spectrum, be a joint activation of a new downlink BWP and new uplink BWP. For example, a new DL/UL BWP pair where the bandwidth of the uplink BWPs may be the same (e.g., no change of uplink BWP).

In an example embodiment, making an association between DL BWP and UL BWP may allow that one activation/deactivation command may switch both DL and UL BWPs at once. Otherwise, separate BWP switching commands may be necessary.

In an example, PUCCH resources may be configured in a configured UL BWP, in a default UL BWP and/or in both. For instance, if the PUCCH resources are configured in the default UL BWP, UE may retune to the default UL BWP for transmitting an SR. for example, the PUCCH resources are configured per BWP or a BWP other than the default BWP, the UE may transmit an SR in the current active BWP without retuning.

In an example, there may be at most one active DL BWP and at most one active UL BWP at a given time for a serving cell. A BWP of a cell may be configured with a specific numerology/TTI. In an example, a logical channel and/or logical channel group that triggers SR transmission while the wireless device operates in one active BWP, the corresponding SR may remain triggered in response to BWP switching.

In an example, when a new BWP is activated, a configured downlink assignment may be initialized (if not active) or re-initialized (if already active) using PDCCH. In an example, via one or more RRC messages/signaling, a wireless device may be configured with at least one UL BWP, at least one DL BWP, and one or more configured grants for a cell. The one or more configured grants may be semi-persistent scheduling (SPS), Type 1 grant-free (GF) transmission/scheduling, and/or Type 2 GF transmission/scheduling. In an example, one or more configured grants may be configured per UL BWP. For example, one or more radio resources associated with one or more configured grants may not be defined/assigned/allocated across two or more UL BWPs.

In an example, an BWP may be in active during a period of time when a BWP inactivity timer is running. For example, a base station may transmit a control message to a wireless device to configure a first timer value of an BWP inactivity timer. The first timer value may determine how long a BWP inactivity timer runs, e.g., a period of time that a BWP inactivity timer runs. For example, the BWP inactivity timer may be implemented as a count-down timer from a first timer value down to a value (e.g., zero). In an example embodiment, the BWP inactivity timer may be implemented as a count-up timer from a value (e.g., zero) up to a first timer value down. In an example embodiment, the BWP inactivity timer may be implemented as a down-counter from a first timer value down to a value (e.g., zero). In an example embodiment, the BWP inactivity timer may be implemented as a count-up counter from a value (e.g., zero) up to a first timer value down. For example, a wireless device may restart a BWP inactivity timer (e.g., UL BWP and/or DL BWP inactivity timers) when the wireless device receives (and/or decodes) a DCI to schedule PDSCH(s) in its active BWP (e.g., its active UL BWP, its active DL BWP, and/or UL/DL BWP pair).

FIG. 25 shows example of BWP switching associated with BWP inactivity timer. A UE may receive RRC message comprising parameters of at least one SCell and one or more BWP configuration associated with the at least one SCell. Among the one or more BWPs, at least one BWP may be configured as the first active BWP (e.g., BWP 1 in the figure), one BWP as the default BWP (e.g., BWP 0 in the figure). The UE may receive a MAC CE to activate the Scell at the n^(th) subframe. The UE may start the sCellDeactivationTimer, and start reporting CSI for the SCell, and/or start reporting CSI for the first active BWP of the SCell at the (n+8)^(th) subframe. The UE may start the BWP inactivity timer when receiving a DCI indicating switching BWP from BWP 1 to BWP 2, at the (n+8+k)^(th) subframe. The gap k between receiving the DCI and starting the BWP inactivity timer may be configured or predefined, to allow the UE switch to the new BWP. When receiving a PDCCH indicating DL scheduling on BWP 2, for example, at the (n+8+k+m)^(th) subframe, the UE may restart the BWP inactivity timer. The UE may switch back to the default BWP (0) when the BWP inactivity timer expires, at the (n+8+k+m+1)^(th) subframe. The UE may deactivate the SCell when the sCellDeactivationTimer expires. Employing the BWP inactivity timer may further reduce UE's power consumption when the UE is configured with multiple cells with each cell having wide bandwidth (e.g., 1 GHz). The UE may only transmit on or receive from a narrow-bandwidth BWP (e.g., 5 MHz) on the PCell or SCell when there is no activity on an active BWP.

In an example embodiment, a BWP may be in active state during a period of time when a BWP inactivity timer is running. For example, a base station may transmit a control message to a wireless device to configure a first timer value of an BWP inactivity timer. The first timer value may determine how long a BWP inactivity timer runs, e.g., a period of time that a BWP inactivity timer runs. For example, the BWP inactivity timer may be implemented as a count-down timer from a first timer value down to a value (e.g., zero). In an example embodiment, the BWP inactivity timer may be implemented as a count-up timer from a value (e.g., zero) up to a first timer value down. In an example embodiment, the BWP inactivity timer may be implemented as a down-counter from a first timer value down to a value (e.g., zero). In an example embodiment, the BWP inactivity timer may be implemented as a count-up counter from a value (e.g., zero) up to a first timer value down. For example, a wireless device may restart a BWP inactivity timer when the wireless device receives (and/or decodes) a DCI to schedule PDSCH(s) in its active BWP (e.g., its active UL BWP, its active DL BWP, and/or UL/DL BWP pair).

In an example, a default BWP may be reconfigured in one or more RRC message for at least a PCell. For example, a gNB may transmit one or more RRC message to reconfigure the new default BWP for a UE, if there are some problem (e.g., overloading, or severe interference) on the old default BWP. When triggered by a BWP inactivity timer, the UE may switch to the new default BWP.

In an embodiment, when a UE receives an RRC message comprising parameters indicating a default BWP change, it may impact the active BWP on which the UE is working on, and/or the BWP inactivity timer which is running on the active BWP. For example, if the new default BWP indicated in the RRC message has a different synchronization channel/signals from the old default BWP, or if the new default BWP indicated in the RRC message has a central frequency far away from the old default BWP, the UE may re-synchronize to the new default BWP in order to transmit on or receive from the active BWP. If the re-synchronization is necessary, the gNB may not know when the UE get resynchronization with the new default BWP. Existing technologies may not provide method to align the base station with the UE when reconfiguring default BWP. Not alignment between the base station and the UE regarding the default BWP may cause communication broken. Example embodiments may provide mechanism to align the base station and the UE when reconfiguring default BWP.

In an embodiment, a UE may receive an RRC message comprising parameters indicating a default BWP change. It may be possible for the UE to change the active BWP to the new default BWP, since the original active BWP may don't have synchronization reference any more, if the new default BWP has a different synchronization channel/signal from the old default BWP. The UE may switch to the new default BWP without a necessity of transmitting a DCI indicating active BWP change by the gNB, which may save the overhead of signaling for BWP change.

In an embodiment, when a UE receives an RRC message comprising parameters indicating a default BWP change, the new default BWP may have similar synchronization channel/signals or similar central frequency. It may be not necessary that the UE resynchronize the new default BWP, or switch to the new default BWP. The UE may restart the BWP inactivity timer or reset the BWP inactivity timer to avoid switching to the new default BWP.

FIG. 26 show an example of the embodiment. A UE may receive an RRC message comprising one or more parameters comprising: one or more DL and/or UL BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration). A DL BWP and/or UL BWP may be associated with a DL and/or UL BWP index; a first BWP identifier indicating the first active BWP (e.g., BWP 2); a second BWP identifier indicating the first default BWP (e.g., BWPO); a BWP inactivity timer with a timer value. The timer value may be configured per cell or per base station, or pre-defined.

In an example, a UE may receive a DCI on the first active BWP (BWP2) indicating the new active BWP (e.g., BWP 3) at the n^(th) subframe. The UE may switch to the new active BWP (BWP 3), and start the BWP inactivity timer at the (n+k)^(th) subframe. The time offset (e.g., k value) between receiving the DCI and switching to the new active BWP may be predefined, or configured in a RRC message. In an embodiment, the UE may start the BWP inactivity timer in the n^(th) subframe, in response to receiving the DCI indicating a new active BWP.

In an embodiment, a UE may receive a RRC message comprising one or more parameters comprising at least a third BWP identifier indicating a second default BWP at the (n+k+m)^(th) subframe. The UE may restart the BWP inactivity timer at the (n+k+m+1)^(th) subframe. The time offset (e.g., 1 value) may be predefined, or configured in an RRC message.

FIG. 27 shows an example embodiment of BWP management. A UE may receive one or more first RRC message comprising one or more parameters comprising: one or more DL and/or UL BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration), each DL and/or UL BWP may be associated with a DL and/or UL BWP index; a first BWP identifier indicating the first active BWP (e.g., BWP 2); a second BWP identifier indicating the first default BWP (e.g., BWPO); a BWP inactivity timer with a timer value. The timer value may be configured per cell or per base station, or pre-defined. A UE may receive a DCI on the first active BWP (BWP2) indicating the new active BWP (e.g., BWP 3) at the n^(th) subframe. The UE may switch to the new active BWP (BWP 3), and start the BWP inactivity timer at the (n+k)^(th) subframe. The time offset (e.g., k value) between receiving the DCI and switching to the new active BWP may be a value configured (e.g., in an RRC message) or a predefined value. In an embodiment, the UE may start the BWP inactivity timer in the n^(th) subframe, in response to receiving the DCI indicating a new active BWP.

In an embodiment, a UE may receive one or more second RRC message comprising one or more parameters comprising at least a third BWP identifier indicating a second default BWP (e.g., BWP 1) at the (n+k+m)^(th) subframe. The UE may transmit one or more signals at the new default BWP (BWP 1) in the (n+k+m+1)^(th) subframe in response to receiving the one or more second RRC message. The time offset (e.g., 1 value) between receiving the one or more second RRC message and transmitting the one or more signals may be predefined, or configured in a RRC message. In an example, the one or more signals may comprise at least one of: CQI for the new default BWP, RSRP/RSRQ for the new default BWP, preamble and/or SR. When a gNB receive the one or more signals, it may know that the UE may get synchronization on the new default BWP, or finish switching to the new default BWP.

FIG. 28 shows an example embodiment of BWP management. A UE may receive a RRC message comprising one or more parameters comprising: one or more DL and/or UL BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration), each DL and/or UL BWP may be associated with a DL and/or UL BWP index; a first BWP identifier indicating the first active BWP (e.g., BWP 2); a second BWP identifier indicating the first default BWP (e.g., BWPO); a BWP inactivity timer with a timer value. The timer value may be configured per cell or per base station, or pre-defined. A UE may receive a DCI on the first active BWP (BWP2) indicating the new active BWP (e.g., BWP 3) at the n^(th) subframe. The UE may switch to the new active BWP (BWP 3), and start the BWP inactivity timer at the (n+k)^(th) subframe. The time offset (e.g., k value) between receiving the DCI and switching to the new active BWP may be predefined, or configured in a RRC message. In an embodiment, the UE may start the BWP inactivity timer in the n^(th) subframe, in response to receiving the DCI indicating a new active BWP.

In an embodiment, a UE may receive a second RRC message comprising at least a third BWP identifier indicating a second default BWP (e.g., BWP 1) at the (n+k+m)^(th) subframe. The UE may switch the current active BWP (BWP 3) to the new default BWP (BWP 1) at the (n+k+m+1)^(th) subframe, in response to receiving the second RRC message. The time offset (e.g., 1 value) may be predefined, or configured in a RRC message. In an example, switching to the new default BWP may comprise monitoring a PDCCH, and/or receiving PDSCH on the new default BWP for downlink, or switching to the new default BWP comprise transmitting PUCCH (if configured), and/or PUSCH on the new default BWP for uplink.

In an example, a UE may receive one or more RRC message comprising one or more parameters indicating an active BWP change. The embodiments in FIG. 26, FIG. 27 and FIG. 28 for default BWP change may apply for the case of active BWP change. In an example, when receiving one or more RRC message indicating active BWP change at the (n+k+m)^(th) subframe, the UE may restart the BWP inactivity timer at the (n+k+m+1)^(th) subframe, if the new active BWP is different from the first default BWP. The time offset (e.g., 1) may be configured or predefined. In another example, when receiving one or more RRC message indicating active BWP change at the (n+k+m)^(th) subframe, the UE may transmit one or more signals on the new active BWP at the (n+k+m+1)^(th) subframe. The time offset (e.g., 1 value) may be predefined, or configured in a RRC message. In another example, when receiving one or more RRC message indicating active BWP change at the (n+k+m)^(th) subframe, the UE may switch the current active BWP to the new active BWP at the (n+k+m+1)^(th) subframe. The time offset (e.g., 1 value) may be predefined, or configured in a RRC message.

In an example, as shown in FIG. 25, a UE may restart the sCellDeactivationTimer upon receiving a DCI for PDSCH scheduling, or UL grant. In an example, it's possible that a UE may receive one or more DCI without DL scheduling. For example, a UE may receive a DCI for power control, or a DCI for CSI report, or a DCI for SRS transmission, or a DCI for CORESET (control resource set) change, or a DCI for beam management, or a DCI for SCell activation/deactivation. The one or more DCI may don't have a DL scheduling for PDSCH or may have an active BWP indication. When receiving one or more DCI without DL scheduling on PDSCH, the behavior of UE may be defined, otherwise the gNB and the UE may not be in-sync with regards to the BWP inactivity timer and the sCellDeactivationTimer.

FIG. 29 shows an example embodiment of BWP management and operation. A UE may receive one or more RRC message comprise configuration parameters of a plurality of cells, the plurality of cells comprising a PCell and at least one SCell. The configuration parameters of the at least one SCell may comprise at least one of: one or more BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration); at least a first BWP identifier indicating a first active BWP; a second BWP identifier indicating a default BWP; a BWP inactivity timer with a timer value; a SCell deactivation timer with a timer value. The BWP inactivity timer value may be configured per cell or per base station in a RRC message, or as a pre-defined value. The SCell deactivation timer may be configured per cell or per base station in an RRC message, or as a pre-defined value. The UE may receive a SCell activation/deactivation MAC CE comprising parameters indicating activation or deactivation of the at least one SCell at the n^(th) subframe. In an example, a UE may receive a SCell activation/deactivation DCI indicating activation or deactivation of the at least one SCell at the n^(th) subframe. The UE may start or restart the SCell deactivation timer at the (n+k)^(th) subframe, in response to receiving the SCell activation/deactivation MAC CE or DCI.

In an example, the UE may start the BWP inactivity timer at the (n+k+m)^(th) subframe, in response to receiving the SCell activation/deactivation MAC CE or DCI, if the first active BWP is different from the default BWP. In an example, the UE may start CSI report for the first active BWP at the (n+k)^(th) subframe. In another example, the UE may start CSI report for the first active BWP at the (n+k+m)^(th) subframe.

In an example, the first time offset (e.g., k value) between receiving the SCell activation/deactivation MAC CE or DCI and starting the SCell deactivation timer may be configured in an RRC message or preconfigured as a fixed value. The second time offset (e.g., m value) between starting the SCell deactivation timer and starting the BWP inactivity timer may be configured in a RRC message, or predefined as a fixed value. For example, the second time offset may be predefined as zero, then the UE may start the SCell deactivation timer and BWP inactivity timer (if the first active BWP is different from the default BWP) in the same time.

In an example, when a UE receive a DCI for active BWP switching, e.g., BWP 1 to BWP 2 at the (n+k+m+1)^(th) subframe, the UE may restart the BWP inactivity timer and the sCellDeactivationTimer.

In an example, when a UE receive one or more signals comprising an active BWP indication, the UE may restart the BWP inactivity timer and the sCellDeactivationTimer. The new active BWP indicated in the active BWP indication may be same or different as the old active BWP. For example, in FIG. 29, the new active BWP (BWP 2) is same as the old active BWP (BWP 2). In an example, the one or more signals may be a DCI which may not comprise a DL scheduling on PDSCH.

In an example, a wireless device may receive one or more first RRC message comprising one or more parameters for indicating: one or more BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration); a first active BWP; and a first default BWP. The wireless device may transmit, in response to receiving the one or more first RRC message, one or more signals on the first active BWP. The one or more signals may comprise at least one of: CQI for the first active BWP, RSRP/RSRQ for the first active BWP, preamble and/or SR. The wireless device may receive one or more second RRC message comprising one or more parameters for indicating at least one of: one or more BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix); a second active BWP; or a second default BWP. The wireless device may transmit, in response to receiving the one or more second RRC message, one or more signals for the second default BWP, if the second default BWP is different from the first default BWP. The one or more signals may comprise at least one of: CQI for the second default BWP, RSRP/RSRQ for the second default BWP, preamble and/or SR. In an example, the transmission of the one or more signals may be performed after a configured or predefined time period.

In an example, a wireless device may receive one or more first RRC message comprising at least one of: one or more BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration); an active BWP; and a first default BWP. The wireless device may receive one or more second RRC message comprising at least one of: one or more BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration); a second default BWP. The wireless device may switch from the active BWP to the second default BWP, if the second default BWP is different from the first default BWP, in response to receiving the one or more second RRC message. In an example, the switching from the active BWP to the second default BWP comprising monitoring one or more PDCCH on the second default BWP. In an example, the active BWP is a BWP for DL transmission before receiving the one or more second RRC message, and/or, the active BWP is a BWP for UL transmission before receiving the one or more second RRC message.

In an example, a UE may receive one or more RRC message comprising: configuration parameters of a plurality of cells, the plurality of cells comprising a primary cell and at least one secondary cell, wherein configuration parameters of the at least one secondary cell comprising at least one of: one or more BWPs associated with one or more radio resource configuration (at least one of: e.g., frequency location, bandwidth, subcarrier spacing, cyclic prefix, one or more CSI-RS resource configuration); a first active BWP; a default BWP; a first value for a BWP inactivity timer and a second value for a SCell deactivation timer. The UE may receive a MAC CE or DCI activating/deactivating the at least one secondary cell. The UE may start the SCell deactivation timer in response to receiving the MAC CE or DCI. The UE may receive one or more signals indicating an active BWP. The UE may restart the SCell deactivation timer in response to receiving the one or more signals.

According to various embodiments, a device such as, for example, a wireless device, off-network wireless device, a base station, a core network device, and/or the like, may comprise one or more processors and memory. The memory may store instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the device to perform a series of actions. Embodiments of example actions are illustrated in the accompanying figures and specification. Features from various embodiments may be combined to create yet further embodiments.

FIG. 30 is a flow diagram of an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. At 3010, a wireless device may receive one or more first messages from a base station. The one or more first messages may comprise first configuration parameters of bandwidth parts of a cell. The first configuration parameters may indicate a first default bandwidth part of the bandwidth parts. At 3020, a bandwidth part of the bandwidth parts may be activated as an active bandwidth part. At 3030, one or more second messages may be received. The one or more second messages may comprise second configuration parameter of the cell. The second configuration parameters may indicate a second default bandwidth part of the bandwidth parts. At 3040, in response to the one or more second messages, the second default bandwidth part may be switched to as the active bandwidth part. At 3050, one or more uplink signals for the second default bandwidth part may be transmitted in response to the switching.

According to an example embodiment, the cell may be a primary cell of a plurality of cells. According to an example embodiment, the cell may be a secondary cell of a plurality of cells. According to an example embodiment, the first default bandwidth part may be different from the second default bandwidth part. According to an example embodiment, a first bandwidth value of the first default bandwidth part may be less than a second bandwidth value of the cell. According to an example embodiment, the second default bandwidth part may be different form the first default bandwidth part. According to an example embodiment, a first synchronization signal of the first default bandwidth part may be different from a second synchronization signal of the second default bandwidth part.

According to an example embodiment, the first configuration parameters of the first default bandwidth part may indicate a frequency location. According to an example embodiment, the first configuration parameters of the first default bandwidth part may indicate a bandwidth. According to an example embodiment, the first configuration parameters of the first default bandwidth part may indicate a value of subcarrier spacing. According to an example embodiment, the first configuration parameters of the first default bandwidth part may indicate cyclic prefix. According to an example embodiment, the first configuration parameters of the first default bandwidth part may indicate one or more reference signal resource configuration.

According to an example embodiment, the activating the bandwidth part may be in response to receiving a downlink control information indicating an activation of the cell. According to an example embodiment, the activating the bandwidth part may be in response to receiving a medium access control control element indicating an activation of the cell. According to an example embodiment, starting a bandwidth part inactivity timer may be response to activating the bandwidth part. According to an example embodiment, the one or more uplink signals may comprise a preamble. According to an example embodiment, the one or more uplink signals may comprise a scheduling request transmitted on a physical uplink control channel.

According to an example embodiment, a bandwidth part inactivity timer may be stopped in response to switching to the second default bandwidth part as the active bandwidth part. According to an example embodiment, the activating the bandwidth part may be in response to receiving a downlink control information indicating an activation of the bandwidth part. According to an example embodiment, a downlink control channel of the bandwidth part may be monitored in response to the activating the bandwidth part. According to an example embodiment, a data packet may be received via a physical downlink shared channel of the bandwidth part in response to the activating the bandwidth part.

According to an example embodiment, the one or more uplink signals may comprise a channel quality indicator. According to an example embodiment, the one or more uplink signals may comprise a reference signal received power. According to an example embodiment, the one or more uplink signals may comprise a reference signal received quality.

According to an example embodiment, the channel quality indicator may be based on one or more reference signals of the second default bandwidth part. According to an example embodiment, the one or more reference signals may comprise one or more synchronization signal blocks. According to an example embodiment, the one or more reference signals may comprise one or more channel state information reference signals. According to an example embodiment, the reference signal received power may be based on one or more reference signals of the second default bandwidth part.

FIG. 31 is a flow diagram of an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. At 3110, a base station may transmit one or more first messages to a wireless device. The one or more first messages may comprise first configuration parameters of bandwidth parts of a cell. The first configuration parameters may indicate a first default bandwidth part of the bandwidth parts. At 3120, a bandwidth part of the bandwidth parts may be switched to as an active bandwidth part for the wireless device. At 3130, one or more second messages may be transmitted. The one or more second messages may comprise second configuration parameters of the cell. The second configuration parameters may indicate a second default bandwidth part of the bandwidth parts. At 3140, the second default bandwidth part may be switched to as the active bandwidth part for the wireless device. At 3150, one or more uplink signals for the second default bandwidth part may be received from the wireless device in response to the switching the second default bandwidth part.

FIG. 32 is a flow diagram of an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. At 3210, a wireless device may receive one or more first messages from a base station. The one or more first messages may comprise first configuration parameters of bandwidth parts of a cell. The first configuration parameters may comprise a first default bandwidth part. The first configuration parameters may comprise a timer value for a bandwidth part inactivity timer. At 3220, a first bandwidth part of the bandwidth parts may be activated as an active bandwidth part. At 3230, one or more second messages may be received. The one or more second messages may comprise second configuration parameters of the cell. The second configuration parameters may indicate a second default bandwidth part. At 3240, the bandwidth part inactivity timer may be started based on the timer value in response to the one or more second messages. At 3250, the second default bandwidth part may be switching to as the active bandwidth part in response to an expiry of the bandwidth part inactivity timer. At 3260, one or more uplink signals for the second default bandwidth part may be transmitted.

FIG. 33 is a flow diagram of an aspect of an embodiment of the present disclosure. At 3310, one or more messages may be received. The one or more messages may comprise configuration parameters of bandwidth parts of a secondary cell. The configuration parameters may comprise a timer value for a bandwidth part inactivity timer. The configuration parameters may comprise a first bandwidth part identifier indicating a first active bandwidth part of the bandwidth parts. At 3320, a downlink control information may be received. The downlink control information may indicate an activation of the secondary cell. At 3330, in response to the downlink control information, the bandwidth part inactivity timer may be started based on the timer value. At 3340, while the bandwidth part inactivity timer is running, a downlink control channel may be monitored on the first active bandwidth part. At 3350, in response to an expiry of the bandwidth part inactivity timer, a default BWP may be switched to. According to an example embodiment, a cell deactivation timer of the secondary cell may be started in response to the downlink control information. According to an example embodiment, the secondary cell may be deactivated in response to an expiry of a cell deactivation timer of the secondary cell.

In this disclosure, “a” and “an” and similar phrases are to be interpreted as “at least one” or “one or more.” Similarly, any term that ends with the suffix “(s)” is to be interpreted as “at least one” or “one or more.” In this disclosure, the term “may” is to be interpreted as “may, for example.” In other words, the term “may” is indicative that the phrase following the term “may” is an example of one of a multitude of suitable possibilities that may, or may not, be employed to one or more of the various embodiments. If A and B are sets and every element of A is also an element of B, A is called a subset of B. In this specification, only non-empty sets and subsets are considered. For example, possible subsets of B={cell1, cell2} are: {cell1}, {cell2}, and {cell1, cell2}. The phrase “based on” is indicative that the phrase following the term “based on” is an example of one of a multitude of suitable possibilities that may, or may not, be employed to one or more of the various embodiments. The phrase “in response to” is indicative that the phrase following the phrase “in response to” is an example of one of a multitude of suitable possibilities that may, or may not, be employed to one or more of the various embodiments. The terms “including” and “comprising” should be interpreted as meaning “including, but not limited to.”

In this disclosure and the claims, differentiating terms like “first,” “second,” “third,” identify separate elements without implying an ordering of the elements or functionality of the elements. Differentiating terms may be replaced with other differentiating terms when describing an embodiment.

In this disclosure, various embodiments are disclosed. Limitations, features, and/or elements from the disclosed example embodiments may be combined to create further embodiments within the scope of the disclosure.

In this disclosure, parameters (Information elements: IEs) may comprise one or more objects, and each of those objects may comprise one or more other objects. For example, if parameter (IE) N comprises parameter (IE) M, and parameter (IE) M comprises parameter (IE) K, and parameter (IE) K comprises parameter (information element) J, then, for example, N comprises K, and N comprises J. In an example embodiment, when one or more messages comprise a plurality of parameters, it implies that a parameter in the plurality of parameters is in at least one of the one or more messages, but does not have to be in each of the one or more messages.

Furthermore, many features presented above are described as being optional through the use of “may” or the use of parentheses. For the sake of brevity and legibility, the present disclosure does not explicitly recite each and every permutation that may be obtained by choosing from the set of optional features. However, the present disclosure is to be interpreted as explicitly disclosing all such permutations. For example, a system described as having three optional features may be embodied in seven different ways, namely with just one of the three possible features, with any two of the three possible features or with all three of the three possible features.

Many of the elements described in the disclosed embodiments may be implemented as modules. A module is defined here as an isolatable element that performs a defined function and has a defined interface to other elements. The modules described in this disclosure may be implemented in hardware, software in combination with hardware, firmware, wetware (i.e. hardware with a biological element) or a combination thereof, all of which are behaviorally equivalent. For example, modules may be implemented as a software routine written in a computer language configured to be executed by a hardware machine (such as C, C++, Fortran, Java, Basic, Matlab or the like) or a modeling/simulation program such as Simulink, Stateflow, GNU Octave, or LabVIEWMathScript. Additionally, it may be possible to implement modules using physical hardware that incorporates discrete or programmable analog, digital and/or quantum hardware. Examples of programmable hardware comprise: computers, microcontrollers, microprocessors, application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs); field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs); and complex programmable logic devices (CPLDs). Computers, microcontrollers and microprocessors are programmed using languages such as assembly, C, C++ or the like. FPGAs, ASICs and CPLDs are often programmed using hardware description languages (HDL) such as VHSIC hardware description language (VHDL) or Verilog that configure connections between internal hardware modules with lesser functionality on a programmable device. Finally, it needs to be emphasized that the above mentioned technologies are often used in combination to achieve the result of a functional module.

The disclosure of this patent document incorporates material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, for the limited purposes required by law, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.

While various embodiments have been described above, it should be understood that they have been presented by way of example, and not limitation. It will be apparent to persons skilled in the relevant art(s) that various changes in form and detail can be made therein without departing from the scope. In fact, after reading the above description, it will be apparent to one skilled in the relevant art(s) how to implement alternative embodiments. Thus, the present embodiments should not be limited by any of the above described exemplary embodiments.

In addition, it should be understood that any figures which highlight the functionality and advantages, are presented for example purposes only. The disclosed architecture is sufficiently flexible and configurable, such that it may be utilized in ways other than that shown. For example, the actions listed in any flowchart may be re-ordered or only optionally used in some embodiments.

Further, the purpose of the Abstract of the Disclosure is to enable the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and the public generally, and especially the scientists, engineers and practitioners in the art who are not familiar with patent or legal terms or phraseology, to determine quickly from a cursory inspection the nature and essence of the technical disclosure of the application. The Abstract of the Disclosure is not intended to be limiting as to the scope in any way.

Finally, it is the applicant's intent that only claims that include the express language “means for” or “step for” be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112. Claims that do not expressly include the phrase “means for” or “step for” are not to be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method comprising: receiving, by a wireless device, configuration parameters of a cell, wherein: the cell comprises bandwidth parts (BWPs) comprising a first active BWP; and the configuration parameters comprise a timer value for a BWP inactivity timer; receiving a first downlink control information (DCI) indicating an activation of the cell; in response to the first DCI indicating the activation of the cell: activating the first active BWP; and starting the BWP inactivity timer based on the timer value; and receiving, during the BWP inactivity timer being running, a second DCI via the first active BWP.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising activating the cell in response to the first DCI indicating the activation of the cell.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first DCI does not indicate downlink scheduling information of the first active BWP.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the wireless device receives the first DCI via a downlink control channel of a second cell.
 5. The method of claim 1, wherein the cell is a secondary cell of a plurality of cells.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein a bandwidth of the first active BWP is smaller than than a bandwidth of the cell.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the configuration parameters of the cell indicate at least one of: a frequency location; a bandwidth; a value of subcarrier spacing; a cyclic prefix; and one or more reference signal resource configuration.
 8. The method of claim 1, further comprising monitoring a downlink control channel of the first active BWP in response to the activating the first active BWP.
 9. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving a downlink transport block based on receiving the second DCI.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprising switching to a default BWP from the first active BWP in response to an expiry of the BWP inactivity timer.
 11. A wireless device comprising: one or more processors; and memory storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the wireless device to: receive, configuration parameters of a cell, wherein: the cell comprises bandwidth parts (BWPs) comprising a first active BWP; and the configuration parameters comprise a timer value for a BWP inactivity timer; receive a first downlink control information (DCI) indicating an activation of the cell; in response to the first DCI indicating the activation of the cell: activate the first active BWP; and start the BWP inactivity timer based on the timer value; and receive, during the BWP inactivity timer running, a second DCI via the first active BWP.
 12. The wireless device of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the wireless device to activate the cell in response to the first DCI indicating the activation of the cell.
 13. The wireless device of claim 11, wherein the first DCI does not indicate downlink scheduling information of the first active BWP.
 14. The wireless device of claim 11, wherein the wireless device receives the first DCI via a downlink control channel of a second cell.
 15. The wireless device of claim 11, wherein a bandwidth of the first active BWP is smaller than a bandwidth of the cell.
 16. The wireless device of claim 11, wherein the configuration parameters of the cell indicate at least one of: a frequency location; a bandwidth; a value of subcarrier spacing; a cyclic prefix; and one or more reference signal resource configuration.
 17. The wireless device of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the wireless device to monitor a downlink control channel of the first active BWP in response to the activatination the first active BWP.
 18. The wireless device of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the wireless device to receive a downlink transport block based on receiving the second DCI.
 19. The wireless device of claim 11, wherein the instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the wireless device to switch to a default BWP from the first active BWP in response to an expiry of the BWP inactivity timer.
 20. A system comprising: a base station comprising: one or more first processors; and first memory storing first instructions that, when executed by the one or more first processors, cause the base station to: transmit configuration parameters of a cell, wherein: the cell comprises bandwidth parts (BWPs) comprising a first active BWP; and the configuration parameters comprise a timer value for a BWP inactivity timer; transmit a first downlink control information (DCI) indicating an activation of the cell; and transmit a second DCI via the first active BWP; and a wireless device comprising: one or more second processors; and second memory storing second instructions that, when executed by the one or more second processors, cause the wireless device to: receive the configuration parameters of the cell; receive the first DCI; in response to the first DCI indicating the activation of the cell: activate the first active BWP; and start the BWP inactivity timer based on the timer value; and receive, during the BWP inactivity timer running, the second DCI via the first active BWP. 